ST. PAUL, Minn. — Uff duh! Who knew the Temu tough guys were such lousy actors, too?
The Minnesota Mild threw every trick they could lift from Whiny Pete DeBoer’s playbook at the Avalanche in Game 4. Especially the dirty ones.
The Wild flopped like a walleye just pulled from Lake Winnibigoshish. They begged. They moaned. They worked the refs as if it were a Champions League semifinal, a baloney sandwich of pleading arms and empty arguments.
Minnesota had Stars in its eyes, all right. Dallas Stars. Yet the Avs rallied through all that bulljunk and bluster for a 5-2 win Monday night — bringing a 3-1 series lead back to Ball Arena for Game 5 on Wednesday.
Whenever the Wild dug deep on Monday, Colorado dug deeper. Ross Colton. Jack Ahcan. From goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood winning his first playoff start to a “checking” line of Parker Kelly (one goal, three hits), Jack Drury (one assist, two hits) and Joel Kiviranta (two hits), almost every one of coach Jared Bednar’s tweaks paid off.
It takes a village to lift Lord Stanley. The Avs reminded everybody why they’ve got more pitchforks within arm’s reach than any locker room in North America. Colton celebrated his return to the second line by breaking a 1-1 tie on a wrister with 13:04 left in the contest that bested Minny netminder Jesper Wallstedt on his stick side — his first goal of the postseason.
And it was the Avs’ fourth line, Bednar’s favorite sons, that kept the Stanley Cup favorites on top. With 8:28 to go, Kelly took Drury’s pass in the slot, cocked his stick back, and beat Wallstedt with a laser into the top shelf for a 3-2 Colorado lead.
The Avs came in crashing, relentless waves, although it took a while for Minnesota’s Wallstedts to break. With 13:59 left in the second period, the Avs were outshooting Minnesota 17-4. Colorado managed to break through on attempt No. 19 seven seconds later, via their second power play.
Nazem Kadri got a great look off a wrister from the front of the right face-off circle, only for Wallstedt to parry the point-blank look. But the netminder couldn’t corral it, and Kadri gathered his own rebound and whistled it past Wallstedt to get Colorado on the board with 13:52 left in the stanza.
Like the Broncos and Seahawks, the Avs have the kind of defense that travels well, the kind of defense that can win anywhere. The Wild went 19 minutes in the middle period without a shot on goal at one point.
Colorado landed more shots (10 to 4), hits (12 to eight), and takeaways (three to none) than the Wild did over the opening 20 minutes, but couldn’t lay a glove on Minnesota early.
Well, except for one glove in particular. And that belonged to Avs defender Josh Manson, who celebrated his first game in this series by getting a shot in from his backside.
With 12:53 in the first, Minnesota’s Michael McCarron forechecked the Avs D-man into Manitoba, then landed on him with all of his 6-foot-6, 242-pound frame. And just … sort of … stayed there, soaking up the syrup from his pancake job.
As the two clenched, UFC style, Manson appeared to poke at the bigger assailant near the ear with the end of his stick, then threw a left jab with his fist while McCarron lowered an elbow. Manson’s shot landed, but the bigger Wild forward responded as if he’d been popped by Conor McGregor, shooting his head back and collapsing to the ice while clutching his face.
Manson was assessed a four-minute double minor for butt-ending with his stick. He was lucky, in hindsight, that the zebras didn’t toss him. A call for landing the butt-end of the stick is a five-minute major and a game misconduct.
“You played against Josh,” McCarron told ESPN’s P.K. Subban after the opening period. “He’s a dirty player. He’s always been. Surprised he got away with only a four-minute (penalty). I’m happy he’s still in the game.”
Mr. Mc-Karen looked awfully happy to lie on Manson for a few extra seconds, too. Embellish much?
“My intention wasn’t to butt-end him,” Manson said later. “Did I want to punch him in the head? I did want to punch him in the head.”
If you’re curious, Manson averaged 80 regular-season penalty minutes per 82 games over his NHL career. McCarron’s logged 111 penalty minutes per 82.
Once a Temu tough guy, always a Temu tough guy.
Alas, as with Game 3, the hosts didn’t waste any time taking advantage of the extra man. Minnesota defenseman Brock Faber launched a frozen rope from the blue line, and, like Saturday, a Wild forward was camped out comfortably in the Colorado crease to redirect it. Minnesota’s Danila Yurov doinked the dart past Blackwood, and 9:46 into the game, Grand Casino Arena smelled blood in their beers.
But after that, to his credit, Blackwood held fast between the pipes — at least until midway through the third stanza. Colorado wisely kept most of the action on the Wild’s side of the rink, but Blackwood turned away 11 of the first 12 Minnesota shots he faced.
If nothing else, No. 39 vindicated a lineup change from Bednar that threw everybody a curveball. Manson and Ahcan in on defense, Sam Malinsky and Nick Blankenburg out. Kiviranta in, Artturi Lehkonen out. And the losses weren’t small ones, either: Lehkonen put up a team-high plus-9 in plus-minus with six points through his first seven postseason games. Malinsky was second to the feisty Finn in plus-minus (plus-7) with three points from the blue line.
And unlike Pavel Francouz in 2022 and Michael Hutchinson at the bubble in 2020, Bednar turning to Blackwood between the pipes was a switch of choice.
Bednar never moved off of Alexandar Georgiev in 2024, even though Lord Stanley knows Four-giev gave him plenty of reasons to. He stuck with Philipp Grubauer in 2021 during a second-round Vegas series that flipped from fairy tale to nightmare fuel.
Francouz got four starts during that 2022 run to a title because Darcy Kuemper, Bednar’s preferred starter, suffered an eye injury against Nashville and an upper-body one in the opener of the Western Conference Finals against Edmonton. Frankie finished off the Avs’ 4-0 sweep of the Oilers, and other than Pavel’s relief stint during a Game 3 loss in Tampa, Kuemper wrapped up the Cup champs’ coronation with wins in Game 4 and Game 6.
It’s a long, hard road to a parade, but the Avs, with a 7-1 postseason mark, can just about make out the exit ramp to the promised land, begging in the distance. The path to a title runs through Chopper Circle again. And Colorado is a win away from bringing a deserved curtain down on the Land of 10,000 Fakes.
