ST. PAUL, minn. — Minnesota never has won the Stanley Cup.
At this point, though, the Wild shouldn’t need to show a title to convince anyone it currently owns the Avalanche.
Outshooting the Avalanche 44-20 and taking control with goals from Matt Dumba and Justin Fontaine, Minnesota improved to 6-1 in its last seven regular-season meetings with Colorado with a 3-0 victory Saturday night at the Xcel Energy Center.
Jason Pominville added an empty-netter for the Wild.
Despite the loss — one that wasted a strong game from a besieged Semyon Varlamov in net — the Avalanche finished a respectable 2-2 on the road trip, and Colorado and Minnesota meet again Monday night at the Pepsi Center.
“He was phenomenal and we didn’t play a good game in front of him,” Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said of Varlamov’s 41-save night. “There’s no doubt. That’s a positive for us, the way he played.”
Said Avalanche captain Gabe Landeskog: “Varly played great tonight. He gave us a chance to stay in the game, but we just didn’t play well enough in front of him.”
Devyn Dubnyk, who had 11 saves when he left the game midway through the second period with what the Wild labeled a lower-body injury, and backup Darcy Kuemper combined for the shutout for the Wild.
It was the first meeting between the Central Division rivals since opening night, when the Wild trailed 4-1 midway through the third period and scored four times in a span of 5:07 to claim a 5-4 win.
The Wild was 4-1 against Colorado last season, and that followed Minnesota’s seven-game elimination of the Avalanche from the 2014 playoffs.
Asked why the Wild owns the Avalanche now, Roy took the short-term view.
“Tonight, they were sharper than us,” Roy said. “I thought we had some moments in the game where we did a few good things, but it was clearly not enough. … What they do really well is they’re really quick on pucks and they forecheck hard and they put a lot of pressure on our ‘D.’ We were a little sloppy coming back to help our ‘D.’ ” He added that the Wild kept “the puck in our zone and were buzzing.”
The score was 0-0 after the first period, and most of that was Varlamov keeping the Avs in it. The Wild had 12 shots in the first 10 minutes and ended up with a 17-6 advantage for the period.
A little over four minutes after Kuemper took over for Dubnyk, the Wild finally got on the board at 15:27 of the second, when Dumba’s shot from straight out near the blue line eluded Varlamov.
It was 2-0 at 2:28 of the third after Fontaine got Avalanche defenseman Brandon Gormley down to the ice, then maneuvered around him and got off a shot that Varlamov turned aside. But after the puck went back to the point, Fontaine’s deflection of Marco Scandella’s shot found the net.
The Wild never was in trouble the rest of the way.
