Postgame Hat Trick: Avalanche 4, Wild 3 (SO)

Wild.com's Dan Myers gives three takeaways from the Wild's 4-3 shootout loss against the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena in Denver on Monday afternoon:

1. No quit
As the regular season draws closer to its halfway point, there's no doubt about what the theme of this Wild club has been so far in 2021-22: there's simply no give-up in this crew.
It would have been easy to tuck tail at a couple of points in this one. Playing without arguably its top two defensemen, its top defensive forward and it's No. 1 goaltender against one of the NHL's hottest and most explosive offenses, Minnesota surrendered a pair of goals in the first period and went to intermission down two.
All of the excuses were there. Colorado entered on a 13-game home winning streak and hadn't lost at Ball Arena in 75 days. The Wild was shorthanded and outgunned early. It was a weird day-game road trip in the Mile High air.
Didn't matter.
Kevin Fiala got the Wild on the board 33 seconds into the second period, and from that point on, Minnesota dominated much of the rest of play.

"We've seen obviously in the past that they come hard here, they come out hard," said Wild goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen. "Of course you have to try and stay out of the box as much as you can against these guys, we know that. But I think from then on, we did a good job of playing hard but playing the right way and doing the right things and I think the momentum started to shift to our advantage."
After Kirill Kaprizov knotted the game at 2-2 early in the third period, the Wild kept on pushing, only to see a controversial call go against it. With 3 1/2 minutes left in regulation, Nathan MacKinnon appeared to finish off a quick 2-on-1 down low. Somehow, Kahkonen sprawled to get his left pad on the puck before it crossed the goal line.

Kahkonen's pad ended up across the goal line a moment later, but there were no camera angles that showed the puck over the line ... which is the rule. The play was called no-goal on the ice, but after a lengthy review, Toronto ruled it a goal, which gave the Avs the lead.
Could have been another excuse, but it wasn't ... as has been the M.O. this season, the Wild pulled the goaltender and the NHL's best 6-on-5 team went to work.

Off an offensive zone faceoff, Kaprizov pounced on a quick deflection in front and sniped his second tying goal of the third period, punctuating things with an emphatic cele face first into the glass in front of a guy in a sweet old school North Stars sweater.
"I felt like my head was gonna pop off, [but our players] didn't. And that's the best part is that they held their composure," said Wild coach Dean Evason. "We yelled a few times and caught ourselves as a team, but yeah, 100 percent. Things could go real sideways. And they didn't.
"Our group, very, very proud of the way that we competed tonight. If that could ended in a tie, that would have been better, obviously. But we did enough things to have success in this hockey game.

Not breaking any news here regarding Kaprizov: he's good. Really good. But he also seems to have a clutch gene that all superstars seem to have.
"I think during moments like that, I think everyone kind of just focuses in a little more, just tries to pay attention more to what's going on and I think you just focus more and play better in those situations," Kaprizov said through a translator.
No team is interested in moral victories, but this shootout loss felt about as close to a win as you could imagine.
"It's tough to lose, but ... we came back, had so many chances in the third had so many [shots]," Fiala said. "That's a good feeling. We can take that with us."
2. Kaapo keeps it close
Things could have really gone pear-shaped for the Wild in the opening period, if not for the efforts of Kahkonen in goal.
When the game was scoreless, he made a dandy little glove save to rob MacKinnon on a breakaway. He had virtually no chance on either of Colorado's first two goals, especially the second, which came as a power play expired and Alex Newhook got free between the circles, getting every bit of a one-timer from a prime scoring area.
Late in the period, Kahkonen made a sprawling glove save to rob Mikko Rantanen after a pretty 2-on-1 feed from Gabriel Landeskog, a save that got the Wild to intermission within striking distance.

"He made some tremendous saves tonight," said Wild forward Jordan Greenway. "I think the first period or period and a half he made some big stops that kept us in the game. He had a tremendous effort tonight. He's been huge for us."
Moments before Fiala, Kahkonen was at it again, making an underrated blocker/pad save on a shot through a screen that was well placed. Matt Boldy scooped up the puck a moment later and got it to Fiala who beat Darcy Kuemper to get the Wild on the board and steal the momentum in this one.
Throughout the third period and overtime, Kahkonen was steady as she goes, making a couple of testy chances look really easy and giving up little in the way of quality rebound opportunities to a team in Colorado that thrives on such chances.
Even on the controversial MacKinnon goal, Kahkonen nearly made what would have been a save of the year candidate.

"Some of the saves he made and the power plays, they have special players, right? Special shooters and he came up with some amazing saves," Evason said. "But most importantly is his calmness. And again we talk about Cam and how calm he is and he's a leader. Kaapo's been the exact same thing since he's gone in there."
With the hope that Cam Talbot could be back by the weekend's pair of games against the Chicago Blackhawks, Kahkonen has earned himself some extra starts along the way, a strategy that could pay off. Because of postponements, the Wild will have a bunch of games over the back half of its schedule, and having two goaltenders playing well and pushing one another can only make the team better.
3. Survival mode
The loss for the Wild ended its three-game winning streak, but its point streak moves to four ... and it's one that has managed to keep the team afloat in the Central Division standings during a stretch of games where it has been without a number of critical players.
Following a loss to the Blues in the Winter Classic, the Wild has been without some combination of Joel Eriksson Ek, Kaprizov, Jonas Brodin, Jared Spurgeon, Alex Goligoski, Talbot, Nick Bjugstad, Brandon Duhaime and Greenway. Against the Capitals on Jan. 8, Minnesota was without ALL nine of those players.

Still, the Wild has managed to get through a stretch against Boston, Washington, Anaheim and now Colorado - all teams that have designs on the postseason this year - with seven of a possible eight points.
As some guys have trickled back into the lineup - it was Goligoski's turn on Monday - the hope is that Spurgeon, Eriksson Ek and Talbot could all be back in the mix by the time the Wild drops the puck for its next game, Friday night in Chicago.
"It's huge. We've been a little shorthanded and to get the points that we've been getting the past couple of games is huge. It's going to do wonders for us down the stretch," Greenway said. "We've been saying it, but next man up, and guys have been stepping up to have an impact for us. It's been good."

Loose pucks

• Every Wild skater tallied at least one shot on goal in the game
• Minnesota blocked a season-high 29 shots, its most in more than seven years
• Kaprizov's two-goal game was the sixth of his NHL career
• Mats Zuccarello assisted on both Kaprizov goals, extending his points streak to six games
• During his point streak, Zuccarello now has 10 points, including multi-point efforts in his past two outings
• Matt Dumba assisted on Kaprizov's first goal to extend his point streak to three games
• Boldy's assist was his fourth point in four NHL games
• Fiala's goal was the 100th of his NHL career, making him the fourth all-time Swiss-born player to reach the milestone
• Fiala also has a point in six consecutive games
• Ryan Hartman skated in his 400th NHL game
• Rantanen and Alex Newhook scored Colorado's other goals
• MacKinnon and Rantanen each had multi-point games
• Kuemper left the game because of injury 9:26 into the second period. He finished with 12 saves on 13 shots
• Pavel Francouz made 25 saves on 27 shots in relief of Kuemper. He also made three saves in the shootout

Dan's three stars

1. Kaapo Kahkonen
   2. Kirill Kaprizov
   3. Nathan MacKinnon

Highlights