DENVER \u2014 During the third period on Tuesday, Matt Boldy got knocked hard, head-first into the boards by Nathan MacKinnon.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
You couldn\u2019t blame him.<\/p>\n
The Colorado Avalanche have been physical with the Minnesota Wild\u2019s top players, from Boldy to Kirill Kaprizov to Quinn Hughes, and it seems to be working so far. They\u2019re beating the Wild at their own game.<\/p>\n
Boldy was Minnesota\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to create. I want to score goals, be part of the offense and play well all over the ice,\u201d Boldy said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to do this time of year, and you\u2019ve gotta create space for yourself, so I hold myself to a pretty high standard, and I think I can be better.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is not all on Boldy, of course. The Wild\u2019s 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\u2019re in a 13-for-24 stretch. Boldy is among those players on both units.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHockey is hard right now, this time of year,\u201d Boldy said. \u201cI think Danila has done a great job. He\u2019s 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\u2019ll be. We\u2019ve just got to keep going and find ways to put the puck in the net.\u201d<\/p>\n
MacKinnon is taking over this series. He\u2019s playing like the league MVP, a former Cup champion who knows how to get it done this time of year. It\u2019s not even the goals, though MacKinnon\u2019s power-play goal in the third put Game 2 away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think the playoffs, it is so hard to produce,\u201d MacKinnon said. \u201cI think over the years, we\u2019ve come to realize that you don\u2019t have to score a point to help the team out. There\u2019s a lot of time away from the puck when you don\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019t want to get hit anymore. But the Wild\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cColorado plays different,\u201d Wild center Michael McCarron said. \u201cDallas 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\u2019re hard to touch. We\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019ve tried some tweaks on the first power play, with Ryan Hartman taking Eriksson Ek\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
The penalty kill? Clearly, the Wild have missed Eriksson Ek and Jonas Brodin, two key cogs on the unit. But they\u2019re not moving fast enough as a group. Gabriel Landeskog\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake our reads,\u201d Wild forward Michael McCarron said of what needs to change of the kill. \u201cThey 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\u2019m on the bench, you can see them developing, and we\u2019ve just got to be more aware of where guys are on the ice on the PK.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re doing a lot better with our clears. We\u2019re up and out. They\u2019re getting some Grade A looks, though. We have to clean it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
This series is far from over, and the Wild certainly are capable of coming back. They like their five-on-five game, and they\u2019ve 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\u2019re not going to go down quietly.<\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s strong,\u201d Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to make sure you have the right matchups on him. He gets a break and creates an opportunity, you\u2019re going to need a save, which we got (Tuesday). You\u2019ve also got to remember no Eriksson Ek. That\u2019s 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\u2019ve got to keep playing him hard. You\u2019ve got to keep taking away time and space.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a big, physical team,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cYep, I get it. But we\u2019re not small. You look at our top six. It\u2019s not small. We\u2019ve got a lot of good guys in there \u2014 strong guys that aren\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to win games this time of the year, it requires an extra level of physicality and commitment to play that way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER \u2014 During the third period on Tuesday, Matt Boldy got knocked hard, head-first into the boards by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1223,4828,385,99],"class_list":["post-630840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}