In St Paul, the Wild’s Ryan Hartman scored late in the third period to tie the Colorado Avalanche and force extra time on Sunday.
Kevin FIala completed the rally with a power play goal 15 seconds into the extra session for a 3-2 win.
“Great entry there by [Eriksson Ek],” Fiala said. “He got it to [Zuccarello] and he found me, so very nice play.”
Cam Talbot made 40 saves in the Wild win.
“You look forward to these games. The way we’ve been playing and where [Colorado is] in the standings, you kind of had this one circled,” Talbot said. “It’s a good measuring stick, especially after we’ve been rolling here pretty well lately, and we need some points in our division. These are big games right now, and there’s no bigger game than against the No. 1 team in the league.”
The Wild improved to 40-20-4.
“We did not shoot the puck enough tonight,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “We had opportunities. We were passing it off and not getting the rebound type of thing. We’d like to see a few more, a little more volume of shots getting towards the net.
“But as far as defensively, we thought we competed on loose pucks. We thought we competed on shots that were blocked, and then our rebounds we cleared to the right areas, so we’re happy with that end of our game.”
Nazem Kadri and Mikko Rantanen scored for the Avs.
“I think we outplayed them most of the game,” Rantanen said. “We had a lot of chances in the first two that we didn’t capitalize.”
Colorado fell to 46-14-6.
“I like the way our team played,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “I liked it a lot. I thought it was a good hockey game. I thought our checking game was really good, didn’t give up a lot against a dangerous offensive team. Created quite a bit. Didn’t finish our chances, obviously took us a long time to get on the board after creating some pretty good chances. Didn’t shoot the puck well. But yeah, I liked our game, though. It was a good game for our guys.”
After a scoreless opening frame, Kirill Kaprizov hit on the power play for a 1-0 lead in the second period.
“To me, personally, it’s not something I focus on,” Kaprizov said. “It’s not something I think about. If I beat it, great. I’d be very happy and honored to do that. But for the most part, I’m focused on the game, doing the best I can and getting wins. If I do that, and our team wins, everything will kind of work out. It would be a great accomplishment.”
Darcy Kuemper made 26 saves in the Avs loss.
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