ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Avalanche’s issues when there are not 10 skaters on the ice sent the club to its first loss of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Minnesota Wild’s big guns showed up in a big way Saturday night, and the Avs looked wobbly for the first time in this tournament in a 5-1 loss in Game 3 at Grand Casino Arena. Kirill Kaprizov, Quinn Hughes and Brock Faber combined for three goals and eight points for the Wild.
“We didn’t play good enough to win a hockey game tonight against a desperate team,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “Looked to me like they had more determination. They were more tenacious, more physical and we tried to respond but we didn’t get a lot out of some of our lines tonight. We need to do more to win that hockey game against a team that their backs were against the wall.
“Now itap up to us to respond.”
Colorado leads this best-of-seven series 2-1. Game 4 is back here Monday night.
While the Avs were the NHL’s best regular-season team at 5-on-5 and on the penalty kill, they struggled at times in other game states — on the power play, during 3-on-3 overtimes and the shootout among them.
Minnesota’s first three goals came when it was not 5-on-5 action, and chased Scott Wedgewood for the first time in these playoffs. Wedgewood was 6-0 during this run, but allowed three goals on 12 shots in less than 25 minutes before Avs coach Jared Bednar went to Mackenzie Blackwood for the first time since a 3-1 win April 14 in Calgary.
Blackwood made 12 saves on 13 shots in relief.
“It’s tough, obviously — just trying to stay sharp in practice and stuff,” Blackwood said. “There’s moments where you could do things better, but overall, I mean, after missing a lot of time, it was not bad.”
Both teams did plenty of hitting in the opening 15 minutes of this contest, but it was a post-whistle donnybrook that led to Colorado’s demise. Parker Kelly and Ryan Hartman were both sent off for roughing at 14:54, and the Wild needed just 17 seconds of 4-on-4 play for the $17 million man to give Minnesota its first 1-0 lead of the series.
Kaprizov took a pass from Faber near the offensive blue line and no one picked him up, so he deked Wedgewood into a compromising position and fired one past him. It went from bad to worse on the next shift.
Devon Toews was called for a hooking penalty, giving Minnesota 63 seconds of 4-on-3 power-play time. It went from worse to worst when Wedgewood lost his stick, and Hughes was able to skate right at the top of the zone and then snap one back towards the left post to make it 2-0 at 16:44 of the first.
Colorado won Game 2 because of special teams, and Minnesota’s plan to make that a priority in this contest worked out well. Ryan Hartman made it 3-0 with a second power-play goal at 4:23 of the second, and ended Wedgewood’s night.
Mats Zuccarello took a shot from the left point that went off Toews and fluttered towards the net. Hartman skated by the top of the crease and gave it a backhanded nudge in mid-air as Wedgewood was trying to reverse course for the original re-direction.
“Just felt like at times we were chasing the game,” Avs star Cale Makar said. “It’s going to happen. Series was never going to be easy. … We were just sitting back. We were giving them a lot of space to move around. And in our defensive coverage, we can’t really do that.”
The Avs’ attempt to mount a comeback started with their own extra-man goal at 13:11 of the middle period. Minnesota’s Daemon Hunt shoved Gabe Landeskog into goalie Jesper Wallstedt, and Nathan MacKinnon was there to tap the puck across the goal line. Referee Kelly Sutherland immediately ruled it a legal goal and motioned to say Hunt pushed the Avs captain into his own goalie.
That comeback momentum lasted 20 seconds. Vladimir Tarasenko took a shot from the left point on the next shift. Blackwood made the initial stop, but Faber was there at the edge of the crease and the puck went off the Minnesota defenseman’s body and into the net to restore the three-goal advantage.
This was the most important game of the season for the Wild. It was not for the Avalanche. Minnesota is also a much better team than Los Angeles, even with two key players still missing (Joel Eriksson Ek, Jonas Brodin).
Now these teams will brace for a huge swing game in this series two nights from now. The Avs can either go back to Denver with a commanding 3-1 lead, or it becomes a best-of-three heavyweight fight.
“I’ve got the utmost confidence that (we’re) going to come out hard and play the right way,” Blackwood said. “I thought we did a lot of good things at times tonight, and there’s things we’re going to want to clean up.
“I think we did a better job as the game went on, but maybe a couple bad bounces and we didn’t have our best stuff tonight. But I think we’ll bring it next game for sure.”
