The Wild Warmup is presented by Bryant Heating and Cooling
ST. PAUL --The Wild finish its six-game homestand on Sunday night when it hosts the Colorado Avalanche at Xcel Energy Center.
After a 3-1-0 start in California, Minnesota is 2-3-0 in its first five home games of the shortened season.
Nine games through the season, Minnesota and Colorado both sit toward the top of the West Division. Colorado leads the division with 12 points (6-3-0) and Minnesota is currently in third place with 10 points (5-4-0).
Sunday will be the first time this season that the Wild will play on consecutive nights, and it will be the second contest in 24 hours against the Avalanche.
The team will look to rebound after a 5-1 loss on Saturday, a game which Minnesota never led.
"Well they're a good team clearly," said Wild coach Dean Evason. "We've got to simply compete harder. We've got to find a way to win puck battles. Obviously they had the puck but we didn't feel like we challenged enough when there was the opportunity to win that 50-50 battle. We think if we do more of that we'll have clearly more possession and have more opportunities to score and they would have less."
Joonas Donskoi gave Colorado a 2-1 lead after scoring with 17 seconds left in the first period and the team never looked back.
Ten Avalanche players recorded points in the win, with five players recording double-digit points. Nathan MacKinnon added two points on the night, giving him a team-high 12 points on the season. Mikko Rantanen's goal in the second period was his seventh of the season, which is tied for the most in the League.
"That team is good, they're the class of the League," said Wild forward Zach Parise. "They play a good style of hockey, they're fast. The top line is arguably one of the best in the League, so it was a different type of game that we had played in the first eight."
Minnesota took seven penalties in the game, and the ever so dangerous Avalanche capitalized, scoring twice with the man-advantage.
"They're one of the better power plays and more skilled power plays out there in the league and we didn't make it easy on ourselves," said Wild forward Ryan Hartman. "We kind of shot ourselves in the foot there. way too many Grade A opportunities.
The Wild could be shorthanded on Sunday night, as the team awaits injury news on Matt Dumba and Marcus Johansson.
Dumba limped to the locker room in the third period
after colliding with teammate Jordan Greenway and did not return to the game. Johansson did not play in the third period after getting banged up as well.
In addition to those two, the Wild will once again be without Kevin Fiala. Fiala will miss Sunday and Tuesday's contests as he serves a three-game suspension for his hit on Los Angeles' Matt Roy in a game on Thursday.
One position where the Wild may be getting more help is between the pipes. After missing three games due to injury, Cam Talbot was back on Saturday night. He backed up Kaapo Kahkonen in the loss and could make his first start in nine days on Sunday.
In four games this season (three starts plus one period), Talbot has a 2-1-0 record, with a .925 save percentage and a 2.34 goals-against average. In the interim, Kaapo Kahkonen has a 3-3-0 record, with a .903 save percentage and a 2.86 goals-against average.
After Sunday night's game, these two teams will travel to Colorado and face each other two more times in a rare situation where the team's meet four times in six days.
