ST. PAUL, MN (AP) — Jonas Brodin scored on a slap shot 18 seconds into overtime, giving the depleted Minnesota Wild a 4-3 victory over the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday night.
Jordan Greenway, who had an earlier goal, set up the winner with a pass from the end line before Brodin slammed the puck past goalie Hunter Miska.
Joel Eriksson Ek got his second assist of the game on the sudden finish, which gave the Wild a 3-3 finish on their first homestand of the season.
“Teams are losing guys left and right. I think the teams that are the most resilient, the teams that deal with adversity the best, are going to have the success,” defenseman Ryan Suter said.
Victor Rask scored his second goal of the game for Minnesota to tie it with 7:26 left in regulation, after grabbing the ricochet of a blocked shot attempt from Kirill Kaprizov. Less than four minutes earlier, Brandon Saad gave Colorado the lead with his fifth goal of the season.
Joonas Donskoi and Cale Makar also scored for the Avalanche, each on primary assists from Nathan MacKinnon before the star center and alternate captain departed the game during the second intermission with a lower body injury.
The Avalanche and Wild are halfway through a six-day stretch with four straight games against each other. The mini-series shifts to Denver for games on Tuesday and Thursday.
“They’re a real fast team, but we can play fast and we didn’t play like we wanted to play the other night,” Wild coach Dean Evason said.
The Avalanche, who lead the NHL with a plus-13 scoring margin, won 5-1 in St. Paul on Saturday night and were on a three-game winning streak with a 15-4 advantage.
The Wild had to add three forwards — Gerald Mayhew, Luke Johnson and Kyle Rau — to the lineup from the taxi squad prior to faceoff.
Defenseman Matt Dumba suffered a lower body injury on Saturday that Evason said “doesn’t look good.” Marcus Foligno was added to the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol list on Sunday. Kevin Fiala served the second game of a three-game suspension for boarding. Another top-six forward, Marcus Johansson, was out with a new, undisclosed injury.
“Everyone’s got to do their job,” Brodin said, “and then it comes down to work ethic.”
The Avalanche could sympathize. Even before MacKinnon went out, they were missing four regulars — Matt Calvert, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and defensemen Devon Toews and Erik Johnson — and backup goalie Pavel Francouz.
The only good news the Wild got was the return of goalie Cam Talbot, who was pulled from the home opener on Jan. 22 with a lower body injury and missed four games. He made 22 saves.
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