Eurolanche

Avs Can't Get Past Wild

Devan Dubnyk made 18 saves for his NHL-leading fifth shutout of the season, and the Minnesota Wild won their eighth straight, a 2-0 victory against the Colorado Avalanche at Xcel Energy Center on Tuesday.

Dubnyk is 7-0-0 with nine goals allowed in his past seven starts for Minnesota (19-8-4). The Wild winning streak is the second longest in their history (nine games, March 8-24, 2007)

"That was an impressive game by us all the way around," Dubnyk said. "You look at the end of the game and that's about the tale of the game: We just keep the puck in their end the last minute and a half or two minutes. That was a real good effort start to finish for us."

Minnesota is 12-3-0 at home, including seven straight wins outscoring opponents 25-8. The Wild are in second place in the Central Division with 42 points, three ahead of the St. Louis Blues and six behind the Chicago Blackhawks.

"We want to keep this streak going here," Wild forward Charlie Coyle said. "It's been our best hockey and we want to push these guys (Colorado) back down. We want to keep them there and kind of distance ourselves back up in the standings.

"We need these points right now. They're going to be crucial down the road, so it's a really big two for us."

Coyle scored a power-play goal at 14:14 of the first period to give Minnesota a 1-0 lead. He extended his point streak to four games, and it was the third straight game the Wild scored a power-play goal.

Mikko Koivu made it 2-0 at 8:21 of the second period. Semyon Varlamov, who returned after missing three games with a groin injury, made 31 saves for Colorado (11-19-1), which has lost four straight and is 2-9-1 in its past 12 games.

"I felt good today, but still, we lost, so I cannot be excited or happy about my game," Varlamov said. "It doesn't matter how I play. We didn't get two points, which is the most important thing for us, start collecting the points. So it's frustrating. "We've lost four in a row. It's embarrassing."

Goal of the game

Coyle picked up the rebound off Matt Dumba's shot for his Wild-leading 11th goal.

Save of the game

At 1:34 of the first period, Varlamov stopped Wild forward Jason Pominville as he sneaked up the right side.

Unsung performance of the game

Wild forward Eric Staal won the faceoff at 14:06 of the first period that set up the power-play goal. Staal had an assist, three shots, two takeaways and seven faceoff wins. He has four goals and three assists for seven points in a five-game point streak

Highlight of the game

Koivu rushed toward the net and received a pass in the slot from Dumba to score his sixth goal in his past 13 games. He had two in the first 18.

They said it

"We [have to] turn this around. We [have to] get mad at some point and decide that enough's enough, and we don't have enough of that right now through our lineup. We [have to] have kind of that killer instinct I was talking about on the power play, we [have to] have that all the time. We had fits and starts tonight, but it's just not enough." -- Avalanche forward Matt Duchene

"I liked our energy and our competitiveness through the game. You've got to give Minnesota credit, they're on top of their game right now. They're skating hard. They're checking hard. They don't make a bunch of mistakes. You know, it's hard for everyone to come in here and produce. We know our history; we've been struggling all year to create offense. We felt like we were still one shot away from getting back into that game and giving ourselves a chance, especially the way [Varlamov] was playing. Unfortunately, tonight that just didn't happen." -- Avalanche coach Jared Bednar

"I brought it to their attention. As for the source of pride, that's upon them. I can't read their minds. I think they took it to heart. I think it was one of those games where the score was a little -- what's the word I'm looking for -- it could've been worse." -- Wild coach Bruce Boudreau on defeating the Avalanche for the first time this season

Need to know

Wild forward Pat Cannone, 30, played 9:11 in his NHL debut. He had two shots and five faceoff wins. … Avalanche forward Joe Colborne played 10:33 after missing three games with a lower-body injury.

What's next

Wild: At the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday (7:30 p.m. ET; SN360, RDS, FS-N, FS-WI, NHL.TV)

Avalanche: Host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday (9 p.m. ET; ALT, TSN4, NHL.TV)

--by Jessi Pierce for NHL.com--