Eurolanche

Wild expect more from Avalanche

Season series: The Minnesota Wild  scored four times in a 13-minute span of the second period in a 5-0 defeat of the Colorado Avalanche  in the regular-season opener for each team Thursday at Xcel Energy Center. Zach Parise had a goal and two assists and Jason Pominville, Mikael Granlund and Ryan Suter each had two points.

Wild team scope: The win against Colorado may have been one of the more impressive victories in the tenure of coach Mike Yeo era. Minnesota had a team-record 48 shots on goal, knocked Avalanche goaltender Semyon Varlamov from the game after 40 minutes and kept the potent Colorado offense off the board. But Yeo refused to pump the tires of his team too much after the game, instead putting the immediate focus on the rematch, a message he had shared with his team in the moments following the game. "I think it was a combination of us playing pretty well and them not playing very well, and I think they'd probably say that too," Parise said. "We know that's a much better team than what they showed [Thursday]."

Avalanche team scope: Colorado got off to a 6-0-0 start last season en route to winning the Central Division, but its title defense started with a thud Thursday. The Avalanche couldn't find a way to slow down Minnesota's top line of Parise, Granlund and Pominville, who were on the ice for four of the Wild's five goals. Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said the game came down to a single word. "We didn’t compete," he said. "Competing was the word that was missing in our game. We didn't engage. We avoided every battle. They were faster on every puck than we were."

-- by Dan Myers for NHL.com --

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