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.
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“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.
Coach Jared Bednar had no update on the condition of MacKinnon, who moved into the league lead with 12 assists.
“Would I like to have us healthy and be playing our full lineup? Absolutely. But that’s not something I can control as a coach. Things happen and we’re just going to have to fight through it,” Bednar said.
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.
“We have a lot of character in the room. We were embarrassed last game. I don’t think it mattered who was in the lineup tonight. We knew we had to be better,” Suter said.
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.
“Better to go through it now than in May and June in the playoffs,” captain Gabe Landeskog said. “It is what it is. We’ll figure this out and keep working.”
BACK IN THE NET
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.
Miska, the rookie and native of Minnesota who gave Philipp Grubauer a break for the second half of this back-to-back set, stopped 29 shots in his second career start.
POWERLESS PLAY
The Wild went 0 for 3 on the power play, falling to 2 for 39 for the season for the second-worst rate in the league. The Avalanche lead the NHL in penalty killing, surrendering only three goals in 36 opportunities against them.
SLAP SHOTS
Avalanche: MacKinnon has 11 goals and 19 assists in 32 career games against the Wild. He has seven assists in his last five games. … Makar got his first goal but has 11 points in 11 games, tied for the league lead among defensemen.
Wild: Greenway leads the team with 10 points, and Eriksson Ek is next with nine. … The Wild wore green, white and yellow jerseys for the first time, a look they dubbed “reverse retro,” with the current Wild logo on the front and Minnesota North Stars colors. … The Wild are 3-0 in overtime. … Rask had his first two-goal game since Jan. 2, 2018, with Carolina.
