ST. PAUL, Minn. — Road weariness may have struck at the worst possible time for the Avalanche on Saturday night.
Playing their second game in their second arena in a second time zone in less than 24 hours, the Avs saw any early lead slip away in a 3-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild.
The Avs had arrived in Minnesota about 3 a.m. local time Saturday but didn’t look rusty from the journey in the opening two periods. They took an early lead on a Mark Barberio goal but saw the advantage slip away as Mikael Granlund scored the tying goal in the second period and set up Eric Staal’s power-play winner in the third.
“I’ve got to give our guys credit. Loved our effort, great first period. Five-on-five, I thought we were really good,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “To me, itap tough scheduling for us coming in here. They’re rested; we’re coming in after a hard-fought emotional game last night that we had to scratch and claw to get back on top and win. Our guys, I thought they came out with pretty good energy, pretty good detail to our game.”
Wild defender Jonas Brodin added a length-of-the-rink, shorthanded, empty-net goal with Colorado on a late power play, but Gabe Landeskog got one back on a scramble in front of the Wild net with 41.1 seconds left as the Avs lost in regulation for just the third time this season. It was the team-leading 10th goal of the season for Landeskog.
Barberio, playing in just his third game of the season, opened the scoring with a seeing-eye wrist shot from the top of the right circle that found its way through a crowd in front of Devan Dubnyk and hit the back of the net before the goalie could react. Colorado outshot Minnesota 8-4 in the first period and efficiently kept pucks away from Semyon Varlamov, blocking nine shots in the opening 20 minutes.
“Honestly we only care about the two points,” said Barberio. “I’m not a goal scorer, so if they come, great, but at the end of the day, this is a rival team in the same division. We had a chance to separate ourselves from them, and now they’re closer to us in the standings, so thatap all that matters.”
Early in the second period, the Wild survived 45 seconds of a 5-on-3 Avalanche power play, then rattled off 10 unanswered shots on Varlamov, and tied the game when Granlund slipped a wrist shot over the goalie’s shoulder from close range.
The Avs were without center Tyson Jost for the first time this season after he suffered a head injury in Friday’s home win over Ottawa. Jost was left home from the trip to Minnesota. Gabriel Bourque, who had been a healthy scratch Friday, was back in the lineup to take Jostap place Saturday.
Valamov finished with 25 saves for the Avs, while Dubnyk turned aside 30 Colorado shots for the Wild. After netting a pair of power-play goals in Friday’s 6-3 home win over Ottawa, the Avs were 0-for-6 with the man advantage Saturday.
“We had a lot of good chances, a lot of good looks,” said Avs center Nathan MacKinnon. “I guess you can’t score every time.”
