ST. PAUL, Minn. — He couldn’t see it. He couldn’t quit it.
At a tie game midway through the third period Thursday night, Philipp Grubauer chose a left-pad save on a effort by Minnesota’s Eric Staal. Along with the Avalanche goalie thought the puck had caromed out from danger.
Nevertheless, it had been just away from the goal line, in which the Wild’s Jason Zucker, the University of Denver standout, slapped it for the game-winning goal in Minnesota’s 3-2 triumph at the Xcel Energy Center.
“Weird play. Typically, you can feel the puck. I didn’t. I thought it awakened around, that explains why I ended up,” Grubauer explained. “Fluke objective. It costs us this game. ”
Injury-plagued Colorado, that climbed back from a 2-0 deficit with two goals from rookie defenseman Cale Makar, finished 3-2 on its five-game road trip.
The Avs continued to play without injured forward Mikko Rantanen, Gabe Landeskog, Colin Wilson, Tyson Jost along with Matt Calvert. And just taking five of this game’s seven penalties Thursday proved expensive. Minnesota was just 1-for-4 on the power play however it had twice as much time with all the benefit (7:48) than the Avs (3:31).
“We knew we had the team to come back in this game,” Makar said. “But we place ourselves in trouble being. … For us . But with the group we have right now, out being a major portion of it, along with the guys being, it’s been awesome that which we now ’ve been in a position to do. ”
Colorado is now currently 5-2 in its last seven matches — all played Rantanen and Landeskog, its two wingers.
Makar scored his sixth and seventh goals at 18:49 and 14:19 of this next period of the year. The first came on the power play when he took a pass against Nathan MacKinnon and wristed it past goalie Alex Stalock from between the circles. He tied it from the inside hashmarks of the circle but with a wrist shot that was similar.
Colorado played poorly early but the Wild wasn better. Minnesota, but gained momentum about its third power play when Mats Zuccarello declared a pass behind Grubauer at 1:48 of the next phase — when the Avs’ Joonas Donskoi was in the penalty box for high-sticking at the first-period buzzer.
The Wild doubled its lead when Jordan Greenway capped a tic-tac-toe play with Luke Kunin and Joel Eriksson Ek.
“I didn’t enjoy our implementation. I just thought we had over a couple of guys going tonight, so ” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “I think we worked and competed. We did a pretty nice job in the next half of this next period, making enough chances to tie the game and attempted to scratch and claw our way back. But too little too late. You have to play 60 minutes to win in this match. ”
The Avs return home to begin a two-game set at the Pepsi Center starting Saturday from the Toronto Maple Leafs.
RELATED: Avs Mailbag: Would Cale Makar be better as a forward than a defenseman for Colorado?
Kadri on Leafs. Avalanche center Nazem Kadri — obtained from Toronto on July 1 — wasn’pleasantly surprised to learn that the Leafs fired coach Mike Babcock on Wednesday. High-profile Toronto took a six-game winless skid (0-5-1) to Thursday’s game at Arizona.
“No (team) will be pleased with this, so that they ’re searching for a change,” Kadri said Thursday after the Avs’ morning skate at the Xcel Energy Center.
Kadri has been Toronto’s 2009 first-round draft pick (No. 7 overall) and played with his first nine NHL seasons with the Leafs. He and Babcock had their own disagreements. “We have a mutual respect. Clearly you put a little bit but that’s part of being a man and ” Kadri explained.
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