St. Paul, MN (My Sportsbook) - The Minnesota Wild try to push things to the limit tonight when they welcome the
Colorado Avalanche to Xcel Energy Center for Game 6 of their Western Conference quarterfinal series.
Facing a three games to one deficit on Saturday, the Wild responded with a 3-2 triumph in Denver. Manny Fernandez made 26 saves in his first playoff start, and Willie Mitchell, Filip Kuba and Pascal Dupuis provided goals at the other end.
The Game 5 win improved Minnesota to 2-1 on the Avalanche's ice, but the team has yet to win in St. Paul during this series. The Wild dropped the third and fourth tilts by a combined score of 6-1 in their own rink.
"We owe the fans," coach Jacques Lemaire said. "We want to score goals. We know they get excited when we do."
It will surely be a raucous arena this evening, as fans in the Twin Cities have been treated to their first taste of Stanley Cup playoff hockey in 11 years. Game 3's attendance of 19,354 was a record for hockey in the state of Minnesota.
On Saturday, the Wild took advantage of some sloppy play on the part of the Avalanche, and built a 3-0 lead before holding on in the third period. Steven Reinprecht and Rob Blake scored for the Avs, while Patrick Roy finished with 25 saves in defeat.
"We had a chance to put them away and we didn't and now we are going to be playing an even tougher team going back to their barn," Colorado forward Dan Hinote said.
There is one trend Colorado has in its favor entering this evening, and that's Patrick Roy's recent playoff history following a loss. Dating back to 2001, he is 12-3 with four shutouts on the heels of defeat.
The Avalanche have, however, also gone a meager 2-5 in their last seven possible series-clinching games, including three straight defeats. Last first round against Los Angeles they were ahead 3-1 as well, but needed to go seven games to win the set.
Colorado, which has made it past the first round every year since 1998, would like to see more from its top line of Peter Forsberg, Milan Hejduk and Alex Tanguay. The trio, which carried the team down the stretch, has not provided a goal in the past two games.
The team scoring first has won each game of this series, and that is especially key for the Wild. Minny was 21-0-1 when ahead after one period during the regular season, and 30-0-1 when up after two.
Lemaire once again did not reveal his starting goaltender for tonight, but in all likelihood it will be Fernandez, who yielded to Dwayne Roloson for the first four games of the series before playing very well on Saturday.
If the Wild force a Game 7, both teams will have to recover rather quickly. The deciding match would be played Tuesday night back at the Pepsi Center in Denver.
