Postgame Hat Trick: Avalanche 5, Wild 1

On Thursday night, the Wild was on the short end of a 5-1 loss against the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena in Denver.
Wild.com's Dan Myers provides three takeaways in the Postgame Hat Trick, presented by Associated Bank. Learn more on how to score up to $500 by opening a Wild Checking account.

1. Wild doomed by sub-par start.
Sure, the guy counting shots at Ball Arena had an itchy trigger finger. But any time you're outshot 25-6 in a period, like Minnesota was in the opening 20 on Thursday night, it's not a recipe for success.
While the 25 may have been a bit inflated, it was certainly an accurate representation of where the puck was most of the period, and that was in the Wild's defensive zone.
But save for a Nathan MacKinnon goal, that deflected off a Wild player in front of goaltender Cam Talbot, Minnesota looked like it was going to escape the first down by just a goal.
Unfortunately for the Wild, it simply couldn't slow Colorado's top line on this night.
After the trio of MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog connected on the opening goal, it was Rantanen who scored off the rush in the final minute of the first period, pushing the lead to 2-0 and providing Colorado with a boost in a period where the score could have been a lot more lopsided.
Talbot allowed five goals on the night but may have been the Wild's best player, stopping 50 shots.
2. Rask's ray of hope.
Despite a tough start to the game, all was not lost, however.
Minnesota's power play connected midway through the second period when Victor Rask went coast-to-coast with the puck, creating room for himself in the offensive zone before unleashing a nasty shot that beat Philipp Grubauer far side under the crossbar.

For Rask, it was his seventh goal in his 26th game, already two more than he had in 43 games last season. It was also his first power-play goal since the 2017-18 season, when he played for the Carolina Hurricanes.
Rask's goal made it a one-goal game again with more than half of the contest remaining.
3. A devastating couple minutes halted the Wild comeback.
Only a handful of minutes after Rask's goal gave Minnesota new life, its momentum was completely snuffed out.
First, defenseman Matt Dumba blew a tire in the defensive zone and crashed awkwardly into the boards. He remained on the ice and needed help to the bench, putting no weight on his right leg. It's the same right leg that got tangled with teammate Jordan Greenway on Jan. 30, an injury that forced him to miss a couple weeks of action.
The Wild's ensuing COVID stoppage prevented Dumba from missing many games, but it likely won't have that luxury this time around. Minnesota has to be hoping Dumba's injury isn't as bad as it looked.
A couple minutes after that, Colorado scored a power-play goal of its own, and not surprisingly, it was the top line scoring again ... this time Landeskog. That goal made it 3-1 with under five minutes left in the second.
That momentum carried over to the third, as Joonas Donskoi would score a breakaway goal 1:57 in, before Rantanen would add his second of the night five minutes later.