"His vision is awesome, he's an amazing winger," MacKinnon said of Rantanen. "He's got so many good tools, it's a privilege to play with him."
Said Dubnyk, "It's tough, I mean [MacKinnon] can get there. He's fast and he's able to get there. Obviously, he's a right-handed shot so his stick just needs to be out there. They made a great pass. It just looked like there wasn't a lane to pass there and [Rantanen] made a nice pass, so he's a threat. Good players make good plays."
Rantanen scored an empty-net goal with 1:53 left in the third period to give Colorado a 3-1 lead, and Compher extended it to 4-1 with an empty-net goal with 19.9 seconds remaining.
"You don't want to think about those too much," Rantanen said of his two-point game. "Obviously the biggest thing is for the team to get two points. There are still things we can be better at as a line, especially defensively and in the neutral zone, but it was a good start and big two points. That's the way to get things rolling."
The Wild had chances to tie the game with a power play late in the second period and another early in the third, but were unable to capitalize.
"We had our opportunities, missed open nets and shot the puck wide," Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. "But [Dubnyk] was really good tonight. He kept us in it. When you keep a team in, usually you find a way to score one. Unfortunately, they got two empty-netters."
