Zuccarello also scored in regulation for Minnesota (37-24-4), which had lost two in a row.
“It was a game that we knew it was important for us. I think we had to put the game on the ice that we did tonight,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “The thing is, to me, that’s a good team all year long regardless of who’s in our who’s out of our lineup. When we play a strong game that is focused on attention to detail and good awareness and we have a strong compete level and we get that throughout the lineup, that’s when we’re a hard team to play against. We’ve been kind of building towards that. I would say coming out of the break that was probably our best game, complete game of what we like to see. So, it was good.”
Joel Kiviranta scored, and Mackenzie Blackwood made 22 saves for Colorado (39-24-3), which defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 3-0 on Monday.
“I think I expected it, this time of the year things are tightening up,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “… I liked our team’s game tonight, a lot actually. Thought we did a really nice job with our checking game. Still, we’re able to carve out some good chances. We hit a few posts tonight and had some good opportunities. Little reluctant to shoot at times, I think because they’re all packed in there. But overall, we checked hard and worked hard to create offense, too. So, I thought it was a really good hockey game on both sides. Definitely not a lot of room out there.”
Zuccarello gave the Wild a 1-0 lead 11:01 of the second period. Boldy intercepted a drop pass by Martin Necas in the offensive zone and found Marco Rossi, who passed ahead to Zuccarello for a quick wrist shot in front.
Kiviranta tied it 1-1 at 14:20 of the third period, tipping in a lofted backhanded shot from Samuel Girard in the high slot.
“It’s a tough back-to-back,” Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon said. “We got in at 4 (a.m.). It’s a grind but it was great to get a point, get a late goal there.”
