How the Avalanche are bottling up stars like Matt Boldy and beating the Wild at their own game

DENVER — During the third period on Tuesday, Matt Boldy got knocked hard, head-first into the boards by Nathan MacKinnon.

In another post-whistle scrum, he got punched in the face by Parker Kelly, spending a couple of shifts after that getting in the ear of referee Graham Skilliter.

You couldn’t blame him.

The Colorado Avalanche have been physical with the Minnesota Wild’s top players, from Boldy to Kirill Kaprizov to Quinn Hughes, and it seems to be working so far. They’re beating the Wild at their own game.

Boldy was Minnesota’s most dynamic player in its first-round series against the Dallas Stars, with six goals, nine points and 33 shots in six games. He has been shut out in the first two games against the Avalanche, with his only point an assist and just four shots on goal.

With the series shifting to St. Paul for the next two games, the Wild will need more from their best players, especially with MacKinnon being so dominant.

“I want to create. I want to score goals, be part of the offense and play well all over the ice,” Boldy said. “It’s hard to do this time of year, and you’ve gotta create space for yourself, so I hold myself to a pretty high standard, and I think I can be better.”

This is not all on Boldy, of course. The Wild’s issues are multifaceted, starting with special teams. The power play continues to struggle, in a 2-for-25 funk over the past seven games. The Wild have only killed 57 percent of penalties, which is 15th out of 16 playoff teams, and they’re in a 13-for-24 stretch. Boldy is among those players on both units.

Notably also on both? Joel Eriksson Ek, who has missed the first two games of the series with a lower-body injury but is hoping to play in Game 3. It does seem like Boldy is missing the Swede as his even-strength linemate, too. Rookie Danila Yurov has done his best to fill in as second-line center.

“Hockey is hard right now, this time of year,” Boldy said. “I think Danila has done a great job. He’s growing into a great two-way player, I think. The more he looks up to Ekky and tries to play his game like that, the better off he’ll be. We’ve just got to keep going and find ways to put the puck in the net.”

MacKinnon is taking over this series. He’s playing like the league MVP, a former Cup champion who knows how to get it done this time of year. It’s not even the goals, though MacKinnon’s power-play goal in the third put Game 2 away.

“I just think the playoffs, it is so hard to produce,” MacKinnon said. “I think over the years, we’ve come to realize that you don’t have to score a point to help the team out. There’s a lot of time away from the puck when you don’t have it. I think during the season you can get a little lazy sometimes, but right now every shift is so important. It might not go perfect, but I just think having the right intent is all you can ask for yourself and for your teammates.”

The Wild physically imposed their will on the Stars in the first round. It got to the point where even Marcus Foligno and Brock Faber said it felt like Dallas defensemen didn’t want to get hit anymore. But the Wild’s bottom six has not had nearly the same impact in these first two games against Colorado. It feels like the Wild are the ones getting bullied.

“Colorado plays different,” Wild center Michael McCarron said. “Dallas was bigger. These guys move really well back there. When you chip the puck in, they keep the puck moving really well, and they move with the puck as well. So they’re hard to touch. We’re gonna have to find our way to stop these, slow these D down more. But imposing our will, I thought five-on-five, we did really well.”

The even-strength play has been pretty even, with each team boasting a 50 Corsi-for percentage (the Avalanche are outscoring Minnesota 9-7 at five-on-five). The Wild have to go back to the drawing board on their special teams during this three-day break. They’ve tried some tweaks on the first power play, with Ryan Hartman taking Eriksson Ek’s spot for Game 2 (Faber did in Game 1). Their first-period power play was their best one in recent memory, with six shots on goal. But they failed to convert.

The penalty kill? Clearly, the Wild have missed Eriksson Ek and Jonas Brodin, two key cogs on the unit. But they’re not moving fast enough as a group. Gabriel Landeskog’s power-play goal in the first period Tuesday was too easy. Jake Middleton, who has struggled this series, tried to slide to stop the cross-crease pass to no avail.

“Make our reads,” Wild forward Michael McCarron said of what needs to change of the kill. “They move the puck quick. I think Dallas might have moved it a little quicker, but I mean, you can see these plays developing. Even when I’m on the bench, you can see them developing, and we’ve just got to be more aware of where guys are on the ice on the PK.

“We’re doing a lot better with our clears. We’re up and out. They’re getting some Grade A looks, though. We have to clean it up.”

This series is far from over, and the Wild certainly are capable of coming back. They like their five-on-five game, and they’ve shown they can score on Scott Wedgewood, who was really good in Game 2. Minnesota is a mentally tough group, having come back from a 2-1 series deficit to win three straight against Dallas. They’re not going to go down quietly.

A big game by Boldy could go a long way on Saturday, and the Wild will have the benefit of last change. How have the Avalanche slowed him down?

“He’s strong,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “You’ve got to make sure you have the right matchups on him. He gets a break and creates an opportunity, you’re going to need a save, which we got (Tuesday). You’ve also got to remember no Eriksson Ek. That’s a big part of it. You pull one guy off any one of our lines, and it makes a big difference, especially a player of that caliber. You’ve got to keep playing him hard. You’ve got to keep taking away time and space.”

The hits on Boldy were plentiful Tuesday night. Same with Kaprizov, with veteran defenseman Brent Burns sparking a scrum by hitting the Russian star in a sensitive area in the third period. Hughes took his share of hits, too.

The Avalanche had a week off after their sweep of the Kings to rest and prepare for this series. The Wild had about 48 hours between a hard-fought series with the Stars and Game 1,. They can reset now with the long layoff. But winning four out of the next five games will be a huge task, considering Colorado has trailed for a total of four minutes and 30 seconds through its first six playoff games.

“They’re a big, physical team,” Bednar said. “Yep, I get it. But we’re not small. You look at our top six. It’s not small. We’ve got a lot of good guys in there — strong guys that aren’t afraid of physicality. Like I said before, we have the ability with the sort of makeup of our team and the players that we have that we can play many different styles and have success. It all kind of leads back to our identity.

“In order to win games this time of the year, it requires an extra level of physicality and commitment to play that way.”