The Colorado Avalanche hosted the Minnesota Wild in their final game before the NHL All-Star game break. The Wild entered Denver in the midst of an 11 game road losing streak and walked away with a victory and a spot in the playoffs, should they start today.

Minnesota, who look a lot like the Avalanche did last season, currently has several AHL players up because of recent injury troubles and still just plain outworked Colorado at the Pepsi Center. TJ Galiardi got the scoring started on a back hand shot that really should have been stopped and it looked like the Avalanche were going to be able to take advantage of a Wild team that has had everything going against it.

Sadly, penalty troubles gave Minnesota two power plays and they managed to take advantage of the second with Justin Falk’s netting his first ever NHL goal. Avalanche netminder Jean-Sebastien Giguere was left completely out to dry on the next goal as he first had to stop a partial break away and then deal with a quick one-timer from Dany Heatley, who beat four Avalanche players down the ice to score.

Former Wild Chuck Kobasew tied the goal in the second on another soft goal from Niklas Backstrom, but that would be the last real effort from the Avalanche until the game was in its last seconds.

A brutal turnover from Shane O’Brien led to a completely unmolested 2-0 breakaway against Giguere who had no chance as Carson McMillan put one home.

All around Mr. Clutch, Ryan O’Reilly, was out for this game with the flu, partially explaining the pathetic effort from the Avalanche.

What do you think?

Related posts:

  1. Theodore, Wild Drop Avs In Important Game
  2. Avs Drop Another to Wild
  3. Avs Fall 1-0 To Wild
  4. Avalanche Add Right Wing
  5. Avalanche Snap Road Losing Streak, Beat Wild