EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsGiving up nine goals to the Colorado Avalanche meant the Minnesota Wild were left to answer several questions about how and why they allowed so many in the first place.Quite a bit about the Wild came under focus, after they went from trailing by three goals to leading by a goal, only to watch the Avalanche rally for a 9-6 win Sunday night in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinal."I think there's a lot to look back on with a bit of a helter-skelter game," Wild coach John Hynes told reporters after the loss. "Obviously, you take a look at the score. We'll take a look at some things and take some lessons out of this one and be ready for Game 2."Finishing with the best record in the NHL meant that any team facing the Avalanche were going to encounter challenges. Even more so with Colorado ending the regular season leading the league in goals per game.The scoring prowess has also carried over into the postseason. At first, it appeared that the Los Angeles Kings may have found a solution. They limited the Avalanche to just two goals per game in the first two games of the quarterfinal round.Only for the Avalanche to then average 4.5 goals before sweeping the Kings in four games and having a week between games while the Wild eventually eliminated the Dallas Stars in six games.Part of the formula the Wild used to beat the Stars and win their first playoff series since 2015 was their defensive structure.They limited the Stars, who finished in the top 10 in goals per game in the regular season, to 2.5 goals per game in the playoffs with rookie goaltender Jesper Wallstedt making the necessary saves behind a defensive structure that consistently blocked shots and took away passing lanes.That's not what happened Sunday when Sam Malinski, Jack Drury and Artturi Lehkonen each scored within the first seven-plus minutes of the first period for a 3-0 lead.It was the fourth time this postseason that the Wild had allowed the first goal.Marcus Johansson and Ryan Hartman scored in the final five minutes of the opening frame to cut the lead to 3-2.Avalanche defenseman Nick Blankenburg doubled the lead to 4-2 a little more than four minutes into the second before the Wild scored three unanswered goals with Marcus Foligno scoring a short-handed breakaway goal to give the Wild a 5-4 lead.It was the second time the Avalanche have trailed this postseason with the Kings having a Game 2 lead that lasted a little more than three minutes.But the Wild's advantage lasted less than two minutes when Devon Toews tied it with 1:56 remaining in the second period.Colorado would flex its muscle with Cale Makar scoring twice in the third as part of a four-goal barrage including an empty netter from Nathan MacKinnon.Game 1 had 14 different goal scorers. It's the most in a single playoff game since 1993 and Sunday was also the third time it's ever happened in league history, according to the NHL."Definitely a bit more positive if it wasn't 9-0, right?" Foligno said. "The game was always in grasp and having the lead too. It was a crazy game, but knowing that goal scoring is going well, that's not an issue. Just got to clean up the defensive side of the game."So what happened against the Avalanche? How is it that Colorado is now five goals away from matching what the Stars mustered in six games?Wallstedt, who finished with 34 saves, had an answer for that."They're definitely a different team than Dallas was," he said. "Dallas is more so looking for chances. They didn't shoot a lot off the rush and they didn't get a lot of pucks on the net and this team was way different."They try to get everything. They get good trafficking. They get good tips and everything. It was definitely a different game for me today than it was against Dallas."How much of the responsibility falls on the Wild's defensive performances versus that of Wallstedt? He took responsibility by saying he needed to be better.But he also had quite a few teammates saying that they needed to be better playing in front of him."I do think we can play more to our structure," Wild defenseman Jake Middleton said. "But tonight wasn't our best by any means."Hynes said he never thought about pulling Wallstedt and he thought the 23-year-old played well."Look at what the score was," Hynes said. "We can say it was nine. But they got the empty-netter and their guy was in for a lot of goals against, too."That's when the Wild faced a few more questions.One was about the impact of missing veteran defenseman Jonas Brodin and top-six center Joel Eriksson Ek, who didn't play Game 1 due to injury."Listen, there's no excuses," Foligno said. "You lose Brodie and Ekker and that changes things but you can say the same thing for them."And that leads to the other question about how much the Wild were impacted by a tight turnaround.The Wild closed out their series Thursday and had a day off Friday. They learned late Friday night that their second-round date against the Avalanche would start Sunday.The Wild held an optional practice Saturday before flying to Denver."I don't think a practice has anything to do with it," Hynes said. "I think it's all about wrapping your head around the series and understanding the differences between Colorado and Dallas and you have to take into account as well that we just came off a six-game series. There's guys that are playing a lot of minutes, hard minutes. Our team always responds the right way."I think if we went out there for a 30-to-35 minute practice, it wouldn't have made one ounce of difference on this."Hynes said that it was more about if the Wild had the "energy and juice" to play the Avalanche."We had the energy and juice to play tonight," Hynes said. "The details that we need to have against this team weren't as strong as they needed to be tonight."
