Game Recap: Wild 5, Avs 1

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Kirill Kaprizov had a goal and two assists for the Minnesota Wild, who defeated the Colorado Avalanche 5-1 in Game 3 of the Western Conference Second Round at Grand Casino Arena on Saturday.

Brock Faber also had a goal and two assists, Quinn Hughes had a goal and an assist, and Ryan Hartman scored for the Wild, who are the No. 3 seed from the Central Division. Mats Zuccarello had two assists, and Jesper Wallstedt made 35 saves.

“My job description is pretty easy, stop the puck. That’s what I’m trying to do,” said Wallstedt, who started after Filip Gustavsson got the nod in Game 2, a 5-2 loss for Minnesota.

Wallstedt allowed eight goals in Game 1, a 9-6 loss.

“Obviously when you give up eight that’s not doing your job,” he said. “There are goals I wasn’t happy with, there was stuff I thought I did good, you try to separate what was good, what you have to improve on and what was bad, and what stuff you have to adjust playing this opponent. I think I did that well and was more prepared for today’s game than Game 1.”

Nathan MacKinnon scored the lone goal for the Avalanche, who are the No. 1 seed from the Central and Western Conference. Scott Wedgewood allowed three goals on 12 shots before being replaced by Mackenzie Blackwood at 4:23 of the second period. Blackwood stopped 12 of 13 shots in relief.

“'Wedgy' was playing hard. Maybe he looked a little too aggressive on a couple of those. The penalty kill, ends up without a stick, getting aggressive, coming across. Then they find the back of the net. The next one, gets a piece of 'Toewser' (Devon Toews), I think it’s a pass, and it ends up in the empty net. He’s out too far,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said.

“From what I’ve seen out of Blackwood here recently, a rested guy and a guy that we trust, I felt like it was a good opportunity for us to get him in and see if it sparked our group and if he could maybe close our door the rest of the way. That’s why I did it. Just felt like they had all the momentum and all the speed early in that game, and we needed to do something. We needed to do something to get our guys fired up and going. I was hoping that would be part of it.” 

The Avalanche, who were 6-0 in these Stanley Cup Playoffs entering Saturday’s game, lead the best-of-7 series 2-1. Game 4 will be here on Monday (8 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, CBC, TVAS).

Kaprizov gave the Wild a 1-0 lead at 15:11 of the first period. He gathered a pass from Faber, found a lane to the net down the slot and lifted the puck over a sprawling Wedgewood.

“I thought Kirill was extremely competitive tonight and was on his game. It was good to see,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said. “When he does that, you can see the type of impact he has on the game. I think he was indicative of the team that we knew we had to be better in certain areas, but as I said to you guys over the last couple of days, there are lots of things we did like in the first couple of games we just didn't get rewarded for it and tonight we were able to do that.

“Hard-fought game, both teams were extremely competitive, but it's more indicative of that's the style of game that gives us the best chance to win."

Hughes made it 2-0 with a 4-on-3 power-play goal at 16:44 when he used Kaprizov as a screen and beat Wedgewood with a wrist shot to the blocker side from between the circles.

Hartman pushed the lead to 3-0 while on the power play at 4:23 of the second period. Zuccarello's wrist shot deflected off the stick of Toews in the left face-off circle, and Hartman batted the puck out of midair into the net from in front.

“I was there a while, and (Zuccarello) was kind of waiting for that lane to open, and kind of never did. So he tried forcing it through his legs, and was maybe even going in. But I wouldn’t leave that up to chance. So tried to give it a little boost,” Hartman said.

MacKinnon cut the deficit to 3-1 with a power-play goal at 13:11, backhanding a loose puck in the crease over the goal line.

Faber extended it to 4-1 during a delayed penalty just 20 seconds later at 13:31. Vladimir Tarasenko's snap shot from the left circle rebounded off Blackwood and then bounced off Faber's right leg into the net.

Matt Boldy scored an empty-net goal at 19:56 of the third period to secure the 5-1 final.

“We were just sitting back. We were giving them a lot of space to move around and in our defensive coverage, we can't really do that,” Colorado defenseman Cale Makar said. “So, it turns into long-tenured shifts in the D-zone. It's going to happen. We have to weather that. We weathered a lot of them, but we need find ways to re-attack after that.”

NOTES: Hughes scored his fourth goal of the playoffs and established a franchise record for the most by a defenseman in a single postseason. ... Kaprizov recorded his fifth career multiassist game in the postseason, which surpassed Zach Parise and Mikko Koivu for the most in franchise history. ... Wallstedt tied Dwayne Roloson (five in 2003) for the most wins in a single postseason in Wild history. ... MacKinnon extended his point streak to four games (five goals, five assists). He also became the seventh-fastest player in Stanley Cup Playoff history to 60 career goals (102 games) trailing only Mario Lemieux (74 games), Wayne Gretzky (76 games), Brett Hull (81 games), Mike Bossy (83 games), Jari Kurri (88 games) and Maurice Richard (92 games).