Wild vs. Avalanche Game 1: Colorado wins 15-goal slugfest, kicking off heavyweight bout with a bang

DENVER — What we learned Sunday night is that the Minnesota Wild aren’t going to dominate the high-flying Colorado Avalanche at even strength the way they did the Dallas Stars.

After giving up four five-on-five goals in six games against the Stars, Jesper Wallstedt and the Wild, without two of their best defensive players in Joel Eriksson Ek and Jonas Brodin, gave up seven five-on-five goals and nine in total on Saturday night at Ball Arena. During an absolutely wild 9-6 Colorado win, it felt like the Avs generated more scoring chances and odd-man rushes in three periods than the Wild gave up all series against Dallas.

The Wild, after serving up a 3-0 first-period lead, not only chipped away to tie the game at 4-4 but even took a short-lived lead on Marcus Foligno’s shorthanded goal before the Avalanche tied the game just 1:09 later on Devon Toews’ goal and stormed back from there.

Had the Wild completed the comeback, it would have been the first time in franchise history that they rallied from a three-goal deficit to win a playoff game.

Cale Makar and Nazem Kadri scored early in the third period to help the Avalanche to a 5-0 record this postseason. Mats Zuccarello scored with 3:59 left, but Makar scored a little more than a minute later. The Avalanche would add an empty netter for a ninth goal — the most goals the Wild have ever allowed in a playoff game.

Wallstedt, who was a standout for Minnesota in the first round, gave up a career-high eight goals — the most since allowing seven in his NHL debut in January of 2024.

From Colorado’s perspective, the game was a drastic turn from the low-scoring Kings first-round series. Colorado loved its checking game that series; the Wild made it much harder to effectively defend in Game 1.

The Avs showed on Sunday just how much scoring depth they have.

They got goals from eight different players and points from 13, including four from Devon Toews, three each from MacKinnon, Makar and Martin and two each from Valeri Nichushkin, Artturi Lehkonen and Sam Malinski.

Quinn Hughes had a goal and an assist for Minnesota. He became the fastest player in Wild history to 10 playoff points (seven games).

Game 2 will be back in Denver on Tuesday night.

This story will be updated.