DENVER — The Minnesota Wild and Colorado Avalanche open their Western Conference second-round series Sunday at Ball Arena, a matchup shaped by a regular season split, old postseason history and two key Minnesota injuries that will force the Wild to start short-handed.
The Avalanche beat Minnesota 5-1 on Dec. 21, but the Wild answered with a 5-2 win on Feb. 26. Two other games between the teams went to shootouts, a sign that the teams found little separation over the season and may find even less now that the games matter most.
This is the fourth time the teams have met in the postseason, and the first time since 2014. Minnesota won that series in seven games, a result that still hangs over the matchup even though both rosters have changed dramatically since then. The Wild arrived in Denver after advancing past the Dallas Stars in the first round, their first trip beyond Round 1 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2014-15.
They did it without two defensemen who will not be available for the first two games. Jonas Brodin did not make the trip, and Joel Eriksson Ek also stayed home after sustaining a lower-body injury in Game 6 of Minnesota’s first-round series, a 5-2 win. The Wild will reevaluate both players before Game 3 in Minnesota on Saturday.
Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog said the regular-season meetings offered a useful roadmap for what his club needs to repeat and where it has to tighten up. “I mean, there are definitely aspects of those games and parts of the way we played them,” he said. “We can study that and see what we can do more of and a lot of things that they’re trying to do we can study and see where we can be better defending them and maybe where we have some holes in our game.”
He called the regular-season clashes the start of the matchup’s tactical back-and-forth. “The chess match started in the regular season, and now it carries on to this series,” Landeskog said. “We expect it to be tough and tight-checking, so should be a lot of fun.”
Minnesota forward Marcus Foligno said the Wild are arriving with momentum and energy after beating Dallas. “It’s Christmas morning,” he said. “We’d (usually) be planning a team year-end party now, and I’m getting sick of those. I’ll take Colorado; I’ll even take Team Canada, Team USA in seven games. It’s one of those things, it’s awesome to be here.”
Foligno added that the Wild know the work only gets harder from here. “Dallas prepped us really well and we’re playing a really good team again. The attention to detail, the focus has to be there again. Everyone who’s advanced to Round 2 is probably playing at their peak right now. No matter what team you’re going to get, you’re going to get a really, really good hockey team.”
For Minnesota, the immediate question is whether it can absorb the absence of Brodin and Eriksson Ek long enough to avoid falling behind early. For Colorado, the test is whether the regular-season edge means anything once the puck drops for a best-of-seven series that both sides expect to be tight.
The best evidence says this wild vs avalanche matchup should look nothing like a routine follow-up to Round 1. It has the feel of a series decided in small mistakes, and the team that uses the first two games best may take control before Minnesota gets a chance to reassess its lineup at home.