{"id":567368,"date":"2026-05-05T09:54:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T09:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/567368\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T09:54:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T09:54:37","slug":"avalanche-wild-9-6-series-opener-shows-how-hockey-has-changed-even-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/567368\/","title":{"rendered":"Avalanche-Wild 9-6 series opener shows how hockey has changed, even playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Colorado\u2019s low-scoring, first-round sweep of Los Angeles to a matchup against Minnesota everyone figured would be more competitive<\/a>, Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog wondered aloud whether whether games against the Wild would end with scores like 2-1.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be a tight-checking series, I\u2019m sure,\u201d Landeskog said then. \u201cWe\u2019re ready and prepared for whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one was prepared what happened in the series opener Sunday night, a show-stopping, 9-6 instant classic won by the Avalanche<\/a> with a score more befitting of the 1980s<\/a> when goaltenders wore a fraction of the equipment they do now and got lit up regularly. <\/p>\n

This one was less about the goalies being bad and more of a sign about how hockey is being played now. Coaches let skilled players take more chances and there is high-end talent \u2014 15 Olympians dressed for the opener \u2014 all over the place in this showdown between championship contenders.<\/p>\n

Stanley Cup-winning coach Bruce Cassidy pointed specifically to the elite offensive defensemen involved, headlined by Colorado\u2019s Cale Makar and Minnesota\u2019s Quinn Hughes and Brock Faber. Makar and Hughes were among the 14 goal-scorers, the most in a playoff game since 1982.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonnel drives that as much as anything,\u201d Cassidy said Monday. \u201cPlayers, they shoot the puck better now. They\u2019re finding different ways to score maybe than a little bit in the past. They can all bring it. Just better offensive skill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coaches are more forgiving in the name of making plays, Cassidy acknowledged, because \u201cit\u2019s not fun trying to win 2-1 every night.\u201d But Minnesota\u2019s John Hynes and Colorado\u2019s Jared Bednar will make adjustments that will likely keep the goal total down in Game 2 on Tuesday night (8 p.m. EDT, ESPN).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe probably all felt there was a lot of scattered things going on throughout the game, but I do think there\u2019s some things for us that we were a little out of sorts,\u201d Hynes said. \u201cI feel like our team, some of the things that we gave up, are fixable.\u201d<\/p>\n

They can\u2019t fix the fact that the Avalanche have Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas and so much firepower. Even depth defenseman Nick Blankenburg, acquired at the trade deadline<\/a> for insurance and only in the lineup because Josh Manson is injured, scored in Game 1.<\/p>\n

The Avalanche, whose 233 points from the blue line led all teams during the regular season, got five of their goals from defensemen. They\u2019re just the third team in NHL playoff history to do that and the first since Los Angeles in 1992.<\/p>\n

Fourteen of the 15 goals came with a goalie in net, including the Wild\u2019s Jesper Wallstedt allowing eight on 42 shots. After a season in which the average leaguewide save percentage of .896 was the lowest in more than 30 years<\/a>, there was something to Wallstedt and Colorado\u2019s Scott Wedgewood not being at their best. Wallstedt said the puck seemed to have eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if they put them both in and you played the exact same game with the same chances it would be closer to like 5-3.\u201d Cassidy said. \u201cThey found their way in. They weren\u2019t bad goals, but they didn\u2019t make a lot of saves that they typically do, both in the same night. It\u2019s kind of a one-off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each of these teams had close to an even split of duties in net during the regular season but has so far stuck to one guy in the playoffs. The Avalanche in 2022 became just the fourth team in NHL history to win the Stanley Cup having two goaltenders win at least five games<\/a> during the title run.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do it all year. Why wouldn\u2019t you rotate?\u201d said Cassidy, who started two goaltenders coaching Vegas to the Cup in 2023, though that was because of injury. \u201cIt would make some sense to rotate in the playoffs, and not too many teams do it. I don\u2019t know. That\u2019s the one thing that hasn\u2019t changed much is you\u2019re going with one guy and he\u2019s the guy, so it\u2019ll be interesting to see how it plays out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Players were quick to take the blame for the rapid-scoring affair, and it\u2019s fair to say the game became so entertaining in part because of how wide open it was. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome of those details were lacking from the start of the game and all the way throughout,\u201d Bednar said, acknowledging the Avs were prepared for the Wild to attack off the rush. \u201cIt was more D-zone coverage, but it starts with your rush coverage and then your arrivals, so you\u2019re organized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s first three goals came over a span of 121 seconds, and Minnesota\u2019s response was two goals separated by just over a minute \u2014 all in the first period. After Blankenburg restored some cushion, the Wild got three in a row.<\/p>\n

Cassidy thinks the Avalanche could play six more games like that. Minnesota, not so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a team like Colorado, they play to score the next goal a lot,\u201d Cassidy said. \u201cThat\u2019s who they are. They\u2019re an offensive juggernaut and they\u2019ve got three lines and four, five defensemen that can bring it, so why not play that way? That\u2019s how they\u2019re constructed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with that, Colorado defenseman Brett Kulak, who helped Edmonton make consecutive trips to the final, knows he and his teammates need to be better moving forward to have sustained success.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just got to laugh about it a little bit now \u2014 we\u2019re able to anyways, that we we came out on the right side of it,\u201d Kulak said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re happy with that but certainly not a recipe to win through the playoffs and win the Stanley Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Sports Writer Pat Graham in Denver contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL playoffs: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Colorado\u2019s low-scoring, first-round sweep of Los Angeles to a matchup against Minnesota everyone figured would be more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,3592,1502,762,1116,1281,192,144,5277,7,5,1117,795,1119,1544,513,161,38,1277,517,4,292,19340,1496,2565,43,14,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-567368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-brett-kulak","10":"tag-brock-faber","11":"tag-bruce-cassidy","12":"tag-cale-makar","13":"tag-co-state-wire","14":"tag-colorado","15":"tag-colorado-avalanche","16":"tag-coloradoavalanche","17":"tag-gabriel-landeskog","18":"tag-hockey","19":"tag-jared-bednar","20":"tag-jesper-wallstedt","21":"tag-john-hynes","22":"tag-josh-manson","23":"tag-martin-necas","24":"tag-minnesota","25":"tag-minnesota-wild","26":"tag-mn-state-wire","27":"tag-nathan-mackinnon","28":"tag-nhl","29":"tag-nhl-hockey","30":"tag-nick-blankenburg","31":"tag-quinn-hughes","32":"tag-scott-wedgewood","33":"tag-sports","34":"tag-stanley-cup","35":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116521367242830122","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567368","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=567368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}