DENVER _ Dueling "Let's Go Wild!!!" and "Let's Go Avalanche!!!" chants, the sound of "Dooooo" reverberating the arena, boos meant for the Avs being drowned out by cheers meant for the Wild on a couple of Wild penalty kills, Wild fans inundated Pepsi Center on Thursday night to take in the Wild's second-to-last regular season game.
They saw one of the fastest goals to start a game in Wild history and nearly two blown two-goal leads by the Wild before an Avalanche tying goal was disallowed in the waning moments for a 4-3 Wild victory in the final meeting of the season between the two rivals.
The Wild won their 48th game and recorded their 104th point, matching franchise records. Those can be broken in Saturday's finale at Arizona, a game Darcy Kuemper is slated to start.
Devan Dubnyk, after relinquishing a 2-0 Wild first-period lead in the second period, made 30 saves to extend his career-high and franchise-record with his 40th win.
After Matt Nieto scored with 5:40 left when his centering pass deflected in off Nate Prosser, referee Brad Watson first disallowed Sven Andrighetto's tying goal with 1:14 left. They went to video review, and the NHL Situation Room in Toronto overturned the goal.
However, coach Bruce Boudreau challenged, and Watson determined that Nathan MacKinnon pushed Jonas Brodin into Dubnyk, thus forcing the goalie to topple over before the goal.
After the Avs rallied to tie the score at 2, Nino Niederreiter, once a Game 7 overtime hero in Denver, gave the Wild a 3-2 lead early in the third by burying Eric Staal's slam-dunk pass. Then, Mikael Granlund followed that up by sniping his 26th goal off the far post and in.
Granlund now is a point from becoming the Wild's first 70-point scorer since 2009-10.
That became the winner.
The Wild jumped out to a 2-0 first-period lead after a couple former Colorado collegiate players _ University of Denver's Jason Zucker and Colorado College's Prosser _ tickled the twine.
The quick-strike Zucker, who missed the three previous three games with a lower body injury, didn't waste any time giving Minnesota a 1-0 lead. Just 10 seconds in, Zucker beat goalie Calvin Pickard, last weekend pulled in Minnesota, to a dump-in and scored on a quick wraparound.
The goal tied Zucker's team record for fastest goal to start a game. He already holds the team record for fastest goal from the start of a period (eight seconds). It was Zucker's first goal since March 10. He had one assist in his previous 11 games.
There was a scary moment soon after when Avalanche linesman Ryan Galloway was struck by a Martin Hanzal dump-in from a few feet away. Galloway went down in pain and bled badly. He left the game for good and was taken to a local hospital with a jaw injury, a league official emailed the Star Tribune.
The game was played with only linesman Steve Barton the rest of the way.
The Wild extended their lead to 2-0 later when 15 seconds after a power play, Prosser snapped his second goal in three games through a Charlie Coyle screen. Coyle, who also assisted on Zucker's goal, made a terrific play to get Prosser the puck in the first place.
The second period was a different story, however.
Tyson Jost, who last week signed out of the University of North Dakota, scored his first NHL goal 5:44 into the period when fellow University of North Dakota alum Rocco Grimaldi touched a Gabriel Landeskog pass over to Jost. Jost, who got a step on Jordan Schroeder, beautifully slapped it over Devan Dubnyk's glove from inside the right circle.
It was Grimaldi's first assist with the Avs.
Then, just 30 seconds later, former Gopher Erik Johnson, who has made a career of hitting Wild players with dubious hits, rode Jason Pominville hard and dangerous into the boards. Ryan White jumped to his teammate's defense, fought Johnson and somehow managed to get the only extra minor along with the fighting major.
Pominville left the game for several minutes but returned.
The Wild killed the ensuing power play, but the rest of the period felt like a Colorado power play. The Avs had the territorial advantage and eventually tied the score with 5:05 left in the period when veteran defenseman Francois Beauchemin pinched down the left wall and took a shot that may have deflected off defenseman Matt Dumba's stick.
The puck somehow got through Rene Bourque's screen and by Dubnyk for the tying goal from a tight angle.
