St. Paul, Minn. – Paul Stastny’s smile was a tight one, the sort tempered by a bit of disappointment.
“It’s good to get it over with,” the Avalanche center said Sunday in the visitors dressing room at the Xcel Energy Center. “Now I don’t have to talk about it so much.”
The Avalanche had to settle for one point and one record in a matinee against the Minnesota Wild.
Stastny took sole possession of the NHL point-streak record for rookies with a first-period assist on Milan Hejduk’s goal, but Colorado suffered a setback in its longshot quest for a playoff spot when Brent Burns’ goal at 4:41 of overtime lifted the Wild to a 3-2 victory.
On an Avalanche power play, Stastny’s pass set up Andrew Brunette for a shot against Minnesota goalie Nik-
las Backstrom, who made the save before Hejduk lifted in the rebound to make it 1-1 at 16:16 of the first period. And with that, Stastny passed Teemu Selanne, who finished off his remarkable 76-goal rookie season with Winnipeg in 1992-93 with a 17-game point streak.
“We’ve done that so many times, I knew it was going to turn out to be my assist,” Stastny said.
The Avs won all four previous games in a five-game road trip, so it’s not as if getting nine points out of a possible 10 can be considered a horrible showing.
But losing a point to the Wild, one of four teams in a tight pack for the fifth through eighth spots in the Western Conference, or leaving a possible point on the ice to anyone, is a problem at this stage for Colorado.
With the point, the Avs did move closer to eighth-place Calgary. Colorado is eight points behind the Flames, who have a home game tonight against St. Louis before meeting Colorado at the Pepsi Center on Wednesday.
“That’s a game we have to win,” Avalanche coach Joel Quenneville said.
With Minnesota 11 points ahead of Colorado, that pretty much removes the Wild as a target. The Avs’ major chance to make the playoffs is to sweep the three remaining games with Calgary in regulation, gain six points that way, and hope for some help in pulling off an unlikely overhauling of the Flames.
Minnesota got two goals from Mikko Koivu, and the younger and less-heralded brother of Montreal captain Saku Koivu has scored seven times in seven games against Colorado this season. The Wild ended it in the 4-on-4 overtime when Peter Budaj made a terrific sprawling save on his friend and Slovakian countryman Marian Gaborik, but Burns was able to put the rebound in.
“I couldn’t have pushed over and got there, so I kind of just dove,” Budaj said of the initial save. “But I was on my stomach, the puck was there, and the net was open. The guy made a good shot. But the bottom line is that we worked really hard and at least we got the point.”
Ian Laperriere had the other Colorado goal, off a nice setup from Ben Guite, giving the Avs a 2-1 lead at 9:47 of the third period. However, the Avs couldn’t take advantage of that contribution from the fourth line, and Koivu tied it 22 seconds later.
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
