Avalanche at Wild
The Minnesota Wild are fighting for their playoff lives and try for a fourth consecutive victory when they host the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday. It seemed Minnesota was destined to earn one point Friday against Dallas but Joel Eriksson Ek scored his second goal of the game with 27 seconds remaining to give the Wild a 3-2 victory and plenty of momentum heading into their Central Division battle with Colorado.
"These are important points for us," Eriksson Ek told reporters after recording the first two-goal game of his career. "We have to put more games together and keep winning, and this was a step in the right direction." The Avalanche on Saturday won their third straight and sixth in the last seven games, coming from behind to defeat the red-hot Blue Jackets in Columbus on Nathan MacKinnon's goal with 4:34 remaining. Colorado moved to within five points of first-place St. Louis in the Central while one point ahead of Dallas and seven in front of fourth-place Winnipeg with three games in hand on the Jets. The Wild won the last two meetings after the Avalanche took the season's first encounter as Minnesota defenseman Ryan Suter (two goals, three assists) and Colorado rookie blueliner Cale Makar (two and two) were big producers in the three games.
TIME: 7:30 p.m. ET. TV: NBC Sports Network
ABOUT THE AVALANCHE (31-16-6): MacKinnon leads the team with 31 goals and 75 points - fourth-most in the league. Nazem Kadri has four of his 19 goals and seven of his 35 points in the last five games after tying Saturday's contest with 8:15 remaining. Pavel Francouz (12-4-2, .924 save percentage) is expected to make his first start in goal since Jan. 20 after Philipp Grubauer made 31 saves versus Columbus.
ABOUT THE WILD (26-22-6): Eric Staal paces the club with 39 points but recorded only one in four games since the All-Star break. Kevin Fiala (33 points) had an assist Friday and has three goals and five points in his last three games. Suter (38 points) has an assist in each of his last three games while Zach Parise, who played his 1,000th game Friday, leads the team with 20 goals.
OVERTIME
1. Minnesota has yielded three power-play goals in the last two games - six in the past four - and has the league's worst penalty-killing unit at 73.8 percent.
2. Colorado is the highest-scoring team in the NHL at 3.66 goals per game.
3. The Wild are a division-worst minus-11 while the Avalanche are a Western Conference-best plus-42.