Simply observing the regular season would have given you a heads-up that Avalanche-Wild in the second round would make a spine-tingling playoff series. But how could anyone have imagined what transpired in Game 1? A night that started like a disappointing Avs blowout quickly turned into one of the craziest goalfests in NHL history, with Colorado eventually overwhelming Minnesota by a final score of 9-6.
If you blinked at all while watching this game, you probably missed at least one goal. Despite facing a sensational rookie goaltender in Jesper Wallstedt, who had confounded the Dallas Stars in the first round, the Avalanche asserted their status as the best offense in the league by exploding for three goals in two minutes halfway through the first. I confess that when Artturi Lehkonen potted a wide-open shot on the power play to make the score 3-0, I thought to myself, "Well, that's it for tonight." But the Wild had a resolute response, powering the next two past Scott Wedgewood to go into intermission feeling good at 3-2 down.
What's especially hard to believe about this game is that neither side switched up their netminders even as the pucks kept beating them. Coaches tend to be pretty quick with the hook in the must-win atmosphere of the playoffs, but this game was so weird and topsy-turvy that it was like both sides were just trying to grit their teeth and ride it out.
In the second period, the Avs opened the scoring with a rollicking counterattack, but then Minnesota finally stopped chasing them. Goals from Vladimir Tarasenko and Quinn Hughes tied it, then Marcus Foligno took the lead with a lumbering breakaway off an Avalanche turnover while the Wild were shorthanded. (This was a night when both squads' supporting casts really seized their chances to shine.) The Wild scarcely got to enjoy their time ahead though, because the Avs needed barely a minute to retie the game at 5-5.
The third period was where reigning Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar made the difference. Returning from an injury he suffered earlier in the game, the Denver D-man grabbed the go-ahead in the third with a shot past Wallstedt on a faceoff set play, and with the score 7-6 Avs in the final stretch, he got another puck through from pretty much the same spot. Nathan MacKinnon earned the empty netter, and the Avalanche escaped with their home-ice advantage intact.
I'll let you catch your breath for a second.
Neither team could say they were especially happy with their performance. The offense, of course, is something to be proud of. But the Avs adherents are left wondering if the journeyman Wedgewood is suddenly out of magic, and the Minnesota mainstays are worried that their hot young masked man Wallstedt is officially rattled. Not to mention the fact that these 60 minutes were all a bit too loosey-goosey out there for everybody except a third-party observer's liking.
“That's what this team lives off of is their speed, and their creativity, and their playmaking ability, and we gave them too much of that,” Wild defenseman Brock Faber said. “When we beat this team, we stay on top of their guys and don't give them space, and tonight we didn't do that."
Said Avs coach Jared Bednar, "I feel like we forgot a little bit just how hard we need to work to be good defensively.”
It's impossible to predict what's going to happen next. In the most obvious antecedent to this fireworks display—Calgary's 9-6 win over Edmonton in the first game of the 2022 second round—the losing team went on to win the next four straight. If the Avalanche, now 5-0 in these playoffs, keep up the demolition effort, it wouldn't be a shock given how well they've performed throughout the season. But the Wild, who looked fantastic in their six-game win over Dallas, have proven they can hang with the NHL's very best when they play to their ceiling. They have until tomorrow night to figure out how to reach it again.
