Nathan McKinnon admits ‘great’ silver lining from Avalanche’s shootout loss to Wild
The Colorado Avalanche are still getting used to their new-look roster after a very busy trade deadline, and of course that will come with some growing pains.
The Avalanche got the trade season started early when they trades star winger Mikko Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes back win January. By the time they were done making trades, Rantanen had been moved again to the Dallas Stars.
By the end of the trade deadline, the Avs had acquired Martin Necas, Jack Drury, Charlie Coyle and Brock Nelson. With all of those new pieces playing a big role on the team, it is no surprise that the 2022 Stanley Cup champions are a little rusty, and that showed up in Tuesday night’s 2-1 shootout loss to the Minnesota Wild.
After the game, star center Nathan MacKinnon was disappointed with the result but also knows that it will take time, and is pleased that the Avs got one point in the process.
“Really excited to keep gelling, obviously won the first two or three together,” MacKinnon said. “It’s a tough back-to-back, we got in around four. So it’s a grind but it’s great to get a point, get a late goal there honestly.”
For most of Tuesday’s game, it looked like the Avalanche were going to come away with zero points. The Wild led 1-0 for the back half of the second period and most of the third before Joel Kiviranta evened the score with a third period goal to send the game to overtime.
The Avalanche didn’t get a ton of chances in the extra period as the Wild were content to mostly sit on the puck and keep it away from the high-powered Colorado attack. In the shootout, the Avs swiftly lost 2-0 after just two rounds.
Even in the loss, that point was very important for the Avalanche to get in a tight playoff race. As it stands, Colorado is at 81 points while the Wild jump up to 78 points. The Avalanche are in the final qualifying spot from the Central Division at the moment, so they will be grinding hard to secure that spot heading into the postseason.
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