As a team, Colorado has talked about the need for better starts. The club wanted less deficits and to open the scoring more, as playing with a lead is easier than trying to catch up.
Needless to say, Saturday's opening goal and overall win was a just reward for the effort the players put in.
"It was big. We've talked about that as of late. We haven't gotten the first goal. Any team is a better team with the lead," Landeskog said. "When you do get the first one, it seems like you can keep pushing and you can kind of drive the game where you want it instead of kind of having to chase it. Especially if you go down two goals, it's an uphill battle. For us, I think we stayed patient with it all night, and we did a good job of taking care of the pucks better than we have the last couple games. And everybody was going. Obviously, [Calvin Pickard] made some big saves that kept us in there, and [we] got a couple lucky bounces there at the end with a post and things like that, but it's a good overall team win."
"We talked about it after the Chicago game," Rantanen added. "We have to get the first goal in the game. That's what makes us work better, like we played against Chicago. [Corey] Crawford had 38 saves, so that's a shot mentality. You should win the game, but we were unlucky there and Crawford was pretty good. Today was a good 60 minutes for us and a good goal at the end."
The majority of the match was a goaltending duel, as Minnesota tender Devan Dubnyk and Pickard traded save after save to keep the score deadlocked at 0-0. Pickard was resolute in his third start of the year, turning aside 32 shots for his second NHL shutout and his first of the year.