{"id":566601,"date":"2026-05-04T12:09:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T12:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/566601\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T12:09:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T12:09:29","slug":"how-avalanche-beat-wild-in-absurd-9-6-nhl-playoff-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/566601\/","title":{"rendered":"How Avalanche beat Wild in absurd 9-6 NHL playoff game"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Avalanche beat Wild in absurd 9-6 NHL playoff game<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was an avalanche<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That’s the best, and most punny, way to describe exactly what the Colorado Avalanche<\/a> did against the Minnesota Wild<\/a> on Sunday night in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal NHL playoff series that ended with a 9-6 score in favor of Colorado.<\/p>\n

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Yeah, it was as wild as it sounds.<\/p>\n

In the early stages, it looked like the top-seeded Avalanche might just storm away with it. They scored three goals in 121 seconds to take a 3-0 lead midway through the first period.<\/p>\n

But then the Wild answered back with two goals in 62 seconds, only a few minutes later, to pull within 3-2.<\/p>\n

The Avalanche made it 4-2 four minutes into the second period.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Sabres’ storybook season is real, and Stanley Cup dreams are valid<\/a><\/p>\n

Then the Wild had a storm of their own, three goals across 10 minutes — Vladimir Tarasenko<\/a>, Quinn Hughes<\/a> and Marcus Foligno<\/a> — to take a 5-4 lead late in the second.<\/p>\n

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Before it got to the intermission, though, Devon Toews<\/a> scored to make it 5-5 after two.<\/p>\n

The highest-scoring game of this postseason so far had featured 11 goals. This one would need at least 11 goals to have a winner.<\/p>\n

In the end, they got to 15.<\/p>\n

Cale Makar<\/a> and Nazem Kadri<\/a> scored within the first six minutes of the third period to make it 7-5 Colorado.<\/p>\n

Mats Zuccarello<\/a> nabbed the final Minnesota tally with four minutes to play to pull within 7-6.<\/p>\n

But then Makar scored a minute later, and Nathan MacKinnon<\/a> added an empty-netter, and that was that.<\/p>\n

In one crazy statistical way, it was historic:<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Canadiens win a playoff game like none other in NHL history<\/a><\/p>\n

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It also sets up for what could be an absolutely crazy series.<\/p>\n

Maybe the best news of all for Colorado was that Makar left with an injury scare but eventually returned and looked like his usual self.<\/p>\n

They’ll need him, and everyone else, to hold off the Wild going forward. These teams have some serious firepower.<\/p>\n

More NHL news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How Avalanche beat Wild in absurd 9-6 NHL playoff game originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[193,1116,1543,5,1336,3707,38,517,2054,4,2963,1496,1108,1491,3359],"class_list":["post-566601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-avalanche","tag-cale-makar","tag-devon-toews","tag-hockey","tag-marcus-foligno","tag-mats-zuccarello","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nathan-mackinnon","tag-nazem-kadri","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-playoff","tag-quinn-hughes","tag-sabres","tag-the-wild","tag-vladimir-tarasenko"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116516235769301926","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}