ST. PAUL, Minn. — The safest way to hit it out of the Wild? Trust your Wedgie.
“We needed to do something to get our guys fired up and going,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said of his decision to pull goaltender Scott Wedgewood and replace him with Mackenzie Blackwood during a 5-1 loss at Minnesota late Saturday night. “I was hoping that would be part of it.”
Life in the woodshed wasn’t all Wedgewood’s fault. Kirill Kaprizov spent so much time in the Avalanche crease Saturday, Bednar could’ve charged him rent. The Avs got outhit, outworked, outhustled, out-detailed, out-everything-ed. Colorado takes a 2-1 series led into Monday’s Game 4. Minnesota took Saturday’s head-to-head count on blocked shots (15-8), special-teams goals (2-1), takeaways (7-3) and hits (39-25).
Game 3’s stinker was a team effort, in all the worst ways possible. Minnesota had too many open men in front of the net. The Avs were second too often to 50-50 pucks, second too often to the corner, second too often on the little things that add up in a series this close. It was Nuggets-Timberwolves Game 6 on ice. Not that anybody wanted a sequel.
“We didn’t play good enough,” Bednar said, “to win that hockey game (Saturday) against a desperate team.”
Wedgewood was nowhere near good enough, either, don’t get this wrong. He lost his stick on one goal. On another, he lost a puck the way an outfielder loses a flyball in the sun. With the Avs trailing 3-1 and Wedgie replaced by Blackwood in net, it took the latter all of 20 seconds to give up the fourth goal of the evening and make a steep climb steeper.
Sure, Blackwood stopped 12 of the 13 shots he faced. Yep, he steadied the ship late during some choppy waters.
But ask yourself a question: In a Game 4 that will determine whether this is a series fought to the bitter end or becomes another quick Avs tune-up, would you trust Wedgewood or Blackwood to carry you over the line on the road? To stop the bleeding versus a Minnesota bunch with 18,000 Midwesterners at their back, screaming at every shift change?
When they said this series could use a little more character, the hockey gods gave us Hannibal Lecter. There were about 17 things you’d take back from this one, in a heartbeat. Any Avs postseason game refereed by Kelly Sutherland automatically starts with one eyebrow raised. But Colorado didn’t help itself for a lot of the same reasons the Nuggets didn’t on the other side of the river. Effort, mostly. Coaching. Stuff in the margins. Nick Blankenburg has been fine in the D-corps, but from a physicality standpoint, Josh Manson can’t get back quickly enough.
At the 5:06 mark of the first stanza, Avs forward Logan O’Connor lost the puck and poked at Jesper Wallstedt’s stick as he slid behind the net. A donnybrook between Parker Kelly and Ryan Hartman at the boards broke out, setting up matching two-minute minors.
The Avs let things snowball from there. Kaprizov opened the scoring with a backhand deke that wrong-footed Wedgewood 17 seconds into the 4-on-4. With the Wild up 1-0, Devon Toews was whistled for hooking Matt Boldy with 4:08 to go in the opening frame, giving the hosts a 4-on-3 look and a leg back into the series.
Wedgewood saved a Mats Zuccarello snapper, but lost his stick somewhere along the way. When Minnesota cycled the carom back to Quinn Hughes, the Olympic star didn’t miss. The D-man glided untouched between the faceoff circles and lasered a wrister over Wedgewood’s non-stick stick hand while Kaprizov snuck into the crease to screen the netminder’s line of sight. By the time Wedgie saw the biscuit, it was tickling the twine behind him as the hosts extended their cushion to 2-0 with 3:16 left in the period.
Minnesota notched its first power play of the second stanza 3:39 into the period and twisted the knife less than a minute later thanks to a flukey deflection and a killer finish. Toews’ deflection bounced high from the left face-off dot toward Wedgewood’s net — but before the goalie could control the rebound, Hartman swatted it like a pickleball volley in mid-air and past the Colorado goaltender for a 3-0 Minnesota lead.
Bednar yanked Wegewood immediately after and replaced him with Blackwood, the first time he’d pulled the former since a disastrous start at Ball Arena against Pittsburgh — — back on March 16. Wedgie gave up three goals on five shots that evening over 13 minutes between the pipes. It wasn’t just No. 39’s first action of the postseason — it was his first stint in 25 days.
“BLAAAACK-WOOD!” the locals chanted sarcastically.
“BLAAAAACK-WOOD!”
It was a “message ” move on Bednar’s part, to be sure, and just like that Penguins tilt, things didn’t improve much. The Avs finally got on the board via their second power-play chance on a Nathan MacKinnon goal that had an Artturi Lehkonen vibe to it. With 6:49 left in the stanza, the Colorado forward snuck in at the right post behind a Gabe Landeskog sandwich. Landy had fallen on Wallstedt in the net, while Minnesota D-man Daemon Hunt had fallen on the Avs captain, allowing the puck to squirt loose and evade everybody but No. 29, who chopped it over the line to light the lamp.
Back came Minnesota less than 30 seconds later. Brock Faber got loose up the middle of the ice on a Wild break, deflecting Vladimir Tarasenko’s snapper on Blackwood stick side for a 4-1 lead with 6:29 left in the middle frame.
As for what’s next, best strap it down. This is the Wild’s 10th postseason series in which they opened with an 0-2 deficit. They wound up losing eight of those first nine matchups and only three of those nine made it past Game 5. The only series they turned around? A first-round tussle with Colorado in 2014, one Mikko Koivu, Zach Parise and company stole in seven.
“I thought we came out,” Faber said, “with desperation.”
And this party’s only about to get Wilder. During the regular season, Wedgewood started 22 games on the road, posting a 16-4 record, a 2.01 goals against average (GAA) and a .923 save percentage and two shutouts.
Blackwood away: 18 starts, a 13-3 mark, a 2.19 GAA, a .921 save rate and … two shutouts.
When a push comes to shove … trust your gut. And your eyes. The last eight times Wedgewood’s given up three goals or more in a game, he put a 6-2 record over the eight games that immediately followed. And surrendered two goals or fewer in five of them.
“We’ll have a decision to make (in goal),” Bednar admitted. “But we have a decision to make every night. Some of them are easier than others.”
This one’s a cinch. Dance with the goalie who got you here. Just because Wedgewood lost his stick doesn’t mean he should lose his pipes.
