Jason Zucker scored a tiebreaking goal in the third period, Mats Zuccarello and Jordan Greenway also scored, and the Minnesota Wild beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 in St. Paul, Minn., on Thursday night.
Alex Stalock stopped 25 shots and Ryan Suter had two assists for the Wild.
Cale Makar had two goals, Andre Burakovsky had two assists and Philipp Grubauer made 28 saves for Colorado.
Zucker got the game winner with a heads-up play midway through the third period. Grubauer made a save on Eric Staal's shot close in but lost sight of the puck near the goal line as he stood up in the crease. Zucker came racing in and poked it in to make it 3-2 at 9:58.
It was his seventh of the season.
Grubauer came off for an extra skater with 2:55 left and the Avalanche had several chances but couldn't tie it.
After a scoreless first period, the teams combined to put four on the board in the second. Zuccarello got the first one near the end of a power play when he stood in front of the net and redirected a pass from Mikko Koivu to give Minnesota a 1-0 lead at 1:48. It was his fourth of the season.
Greenway doubled the lead less than a minute later when the Wild stole the puck in the Colorado end, Luke Kunin fed Greenway in front, stickhandled around Grubauer and slid in his second goal of the season at 2:41.
It stayed 2-0 for most of the period but the Avalanche took advantage of Matt Dumba's cross-checking penalty. Makar rang a shot off the post early in the power play and then got a pass from MacKinnon, drifted down the slot and beat Stalock in the top right corner at 14:19.
Makar tied it later in the period when he got the puck at the right circle, skated toward the slot and then beat Stalock on the short side for his seventh of the season at 18:49.
--Field Level Media
