Wild extend Central lead with 4-2 win over Avs Wild go three clear clear atop Central

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In Denver, the Avalanche came up short on Wednesday night in a 4-2 loss to the visiting Minnesota Wild.The Avs had a chance to leapfrog the Wild for the top spot in the Central Division but the Wild extended their advantage to three points.

Filip Gustavsson made 42 saves f in the Wild win.

Minnesota improved to 44-22-9, and moved to 16-1-4 in their last 21 games.

The Wild took a 1-0 lead on a strike by Marcus Johansson  in the first period.

Bowen Byram scored off a breakaway, after leaving the penalty box to tie the game, 1-1, in the first.

“I just jumped out of the box and it got chipped out of the zone, so that was nice,” Byram said. “Anyways, I just tried to come down and make a good shot, and it ended up going in.”

Colorado dropped to 44-24-6.

“I felt like we had some passengers for the first period plus, and when you’re playing a game like this, like a playoff-style game, you can’t have passengers,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “It’s a game of mistakes, and we made some big ones. Didn’t make a lot of them, but we made some big ones and they capitalized on them.”

Sam Steel scored with 3:58 left in the stanza to restore the Wild lead at 2-1.

“I was kind of just tied up and tried to get to the backhand,” Steel said. “Just get it up as quick as I can, and just … kind of instinct.”

Frederick Gaudreau scored the first of two shorthanded goals on the night, in the second period to push the Wild advantage to 3-1.

“We knew coming in it would be a tough game,” Gaudreau said. “The crowd was very loud. It was a fun game to play, and it feels good. I think the thing that feels the best is I think we did it the right way. We were focused for the whole game, and it’s fun to get the result from an effort like that.”

Lars Eller  scored at 13:41 of the third to trim the deficit to 3-2 for the Avalanche.

“I would have liked to see our whole team engaged right away, and I don’t think that our whole team was engaged right away,” Bednar said. “We’ve got to talk about it, learn from it, and then we’ve got to be better on Saturday (against the Stars). It’s important.”

Gaudreau’s second shortie of the night came with 33 seconds left in the match, into an empty net, for the 4-2 final.

“The PK at the end was huge. Great sticks, great blocks all around,” Wild forward Ryan Hartman said. “‘Gus’ was awesome. Yeah, everyone was buying in tonight.”

Alexandar Georgiev made 25 saves in the Avs loss.