DENVER – Sunday was a wild night at Ball Arena in Denver. The Colorado Avalanche took a 1-0 series lead over the Minnesota Wild while putting up nine goals.
For those who have not gotten around to doing the good ol’ internet search, let me save you some time. Colorado and Minnesota combined for 15 goals Sunday. The record for most goals scored in a Stanley Cup Playoff game is 18 goals. That was back on April 7, 1982, between the Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings. Edmonton beat Los Angels 10-8 in the Divison Semifinals. (Side note: Wayne Gretzky did not have a single goal in that game but came away with only 7 assists).
Game 2 of the series is scheduled for Tuesday, May 5 in Denver. After seeing the chaos that was game 1, here are some keys for game 2:
Colorado Avalanche
Settle down. Colorado can obviously go blow for blow with any team in the playoffs. This is a team who allowed the fewest goals in the regular season (204) and ended with a +99 goal differential. Stay the course, maybe focus more on backchecking.
(Fun fact: Colorado allowed more goals in Sunday’s game than they did in the entire first round.)
Colorado’s power play would be an area of focus for game two. While they did convert on one of their power play opportunities, the short-handed goal they let in was a go-ahead goal for the Wild.
Minnesota Wild
That was a tough loss to take but it was not all gloom and doom for the Wild. Minnesota was able to come back from being down 3-1 and briefly take the lead in the 3rd period at 5-4.
“If you lose a game, you’ve got to take the lessons out of it, move on,” said Minnesota head coach John Hynes.
Seeing how many shots they were able to get by Scott Wedgewood, Minnesota could focus more on generating more shots on net. The first period of game one saw the Wild’s shot total in the single digits.
With that, Minnesota was still able to get a pair of goals.
The key for game two will be to get in the goaltender’s head early. Minnesota’s traffic in front of the Avalanche net was great in game one, look to keep that up in game two.