DENVER – The Wild began the second half of its season the same way it wrapped up the first half: getting blown out by Colorado.
From bad to worse: Wild struggles again in shutout loss to Colorado
The Wild had anything but an enjoyable time during its two games in Denver. Saturday's 6-0 loss followed a 5-1 defeat on Thursday. Colorado's top line racked up seven points Saturday.
March 21, 2021 at 3:41AM
"We talked about hopefully that was a one-off," coach Dean Evason said. "It wasn't. We got outplayed again."
Kaapo Kahkonen's unbeaten streak, new lines and defensive pairings, and a tutorial the night before about what went wrong in the 5-1 meltdown Thursday were no match for an invisible-looking Avalanche squad that was just as dominant in a 6-0 shellacking of the Wild on Saturday afternoon at Ball Arena as it was in the previous matchup.
"These two games that we played we got a lesson in how to play hockey," Mats Zuccarello said after the Wild tied the worst margin of defeat in franchise history for a road game. "They played real well, and we didn't really have an answer for them. You gotta give them credit. They were better than us in every aspect of the game."
Colorado's No. 1 line continued to toy with the Wild, racking up seven points. Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen both scored, and Nathan MacKinnon added three assists.
"They're tough to beat when their top line is going," Zach Parise said. "They're tough to shut down."
Goalie Philipp Grubauer even got involved in the offense, earning an assist to go along with 31 saves for his fifth shutout of the season in a slightly busier game after a ho-hum 19 stops Thursday night.
Across the ice, Kahkonen's franchise-record winning streak for a rookie goaltender ended at nine — a run that's tied for the fifth longest by a rookie in NHL history. Kahkonen didn't have much of a chance to get to 10 since the Avalanche picked up where it left off, causing chaos in the Wild zone.
And although Colorado didn't repeat the mind-boggling 55 shots it recorded in Round 1, with Kahkonen making 36 saves on 42 shots, the Avalanche's batting average was better this time.
Cale Makar opened the scoring 4 minutes, 13 seconds into the first period with a wrist shot on the Avalanche's first of only two power plays.
"That set us back a little bit," Evason said.
Landeskog made it 2-0 when his shot bounced into the net behind Kahkonen at 11:05.
One of the Wild's best looks vs. Colorado came on its first power play later in the first, with the team registering seven shots on net. But none got by Grubauer.
"It's not really clicking this year," Zuccarello said of the power play, which finished 0-for-4.
Two Avalanche goals in 1:07 early in the second period slammed the door on any Wild hopes for a comeback.
After a Grubauer stick save, which secured the goalie an assist, Rantanen went end-to-end before sending the puck top-shelf just 46 seconds into the period. And at 1:53, Tyson Jost's one-timer put Colorado up by four goals.
"It just felt like they were coming at us in waves and waves," Parise said, "and we didn't have much of an answer for it."
Devon Toews tacked on a fifth with 1:13 to go in the second after Brandon Saad scooped up a Kirill Kaprizov turnover and passed it off to MacKinnon, who set up Toews for the one-timer.
Valeri Nichushkin rounded out the rout 4:52 into the third on a season-high sixth goal against the Wild, scoring on a rising backhander.
The Wild now returns to Xcel Energy Center, where the team has won eight in a row to tie the franchise record.
But remnants from this disastrous road trip will linger since the Avalanche not only leapfrogged the Wild in the West Division standings, but also built a three-point lead for second place.
"We got outplayed," Zuccarello said. "Easy as that, and you can't accept that.
''You gotta find a way to come back, and big games [are] ahead of us. This cannot be our standard."
The Wild are off to one of the best starts in franchise history, and Kirill Kaprizov is tied for the NHL scoring lead.
