Wild hold off Avalanche, pad lead in Central Division

DENVER --Filip Gustavsson made 42 saves for the Minnesota Wild, who padded their lead in the Central Division with a 4-2 win against the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena on Wednesday.

Minnesota moved three points ahead of Colorado and the Dallas Stars for first in the division. The Avalanche and Stars each have one game in hand.
"We played like us," Wild coach Dean Evason said. "We didn't play their game. We didn't deviate from the way we play."
Frederick Gaudreau scored two short-handed goals for Minnesota (44-22-9), which is 5-0-1 in its past six games and has earned at least one point in 20 of its past 21 (16-1-4).
"We knew coming in it would be a tough game," Gaudreau said. "The crowd was very loud. It was a fun game to play, and it feels good. I think the thing that feels the best is I think we did it the right way. We were focused for the whole game, and it's fun to get the result from an effort like that."
Bowen Byram and Lars Eller scored, and Alexandar Georgiev made 25 saves for Colorado (44-24-6), which had won three straight.
"I felt like we had some passengers for the first period plus, and when you're playing a game like this, like a playoff-style game, you can't have passengers," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "It's a game of mistakes, and we made some big ones. Didn't make a lot of them, but we made some big ones and they capitalized on them."

Marcus Johansson gave the Wild a 1-0 lead at 3:24 of the first period. Joel Eriksson Ek sent a cross-crease backhand pass between his legs to Johansson, who one-timed it just inside the left post. The play started after Georgiev blindly passed the puck to Johansson behind the net.
Byram tied it 1-1 at 10:43, beating Gustavsson blocker side on a breakaway after exiting the penalty box and chasing down a clear in the neutral zone.
"I just jumped out of the box and it got chipped out of the zone, so that was nice," Byram said. "Anyways, I just tried to come down and make a good shot, and it ended up going in."

Sam Steel put the Wild back in front 2-1 at 16:02. He kicked a loose puck to his stick while battling with Samuel Girard in front before lifting in a backhand over Georgiev's glove.
"I was kind of just tied up and tried to get to the backhand," Steel said. "Just get it up as quick as I can, and just … kind of instinct."
Gaudreau pushed it to 3-1 at 9:10 of the second period with his first short-handed goal, chipping the puck past Cale Makar at the blue line before beating Georgiev glove side on a breakaway.
"[On the PK we] just do our stuff, [be] focused mentally," Gaudreau said. "Of course, I feel like their guys are weapons, so just got to be sharp mentally and make the good reads and be aggressive when you can."

Eller cut it to 3-2 at 13:41 of the third period when the redirected in a centering pass from Devon Toews at the edge of the crease.
"I would have liked to see our whole team engaged right away, and I don't think that our whole team was engaged right away," Bednar said. "We've got to talk about it, learn from it, and then we've got to be better on Saturday (against the Stars). It's important."
Gaudreau scored into an empty net for another short-handed goal at 19:27 for the 4-2 final.
"The PK at the end was huge. Great sticks, great blocks all around," Wild forward Ryan Hartman said. "'Gus' was awesome. Yeah, everyone was buying in tonight."
NOTES:Gaudreau is the first player in Wild/Minnesota North Stars history to score two short-handed goals in a game. He has four short-handed goals this season, trailing only Wes Walz (seven in 2000-01) and Brian Rolston (five in 2005-06) for the most in Wild/North Stars history. … Hartman played his 500th NHL game. ... Makar and Avalanche forwards Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Valeri Nichushkin were each minus-3.