DENVER – The Wild began the second half of its season the same way it wrapped up the first half: getting blown out by Colorado.
"We talked about hopefully that was a one-off," coach Dean Evason said. "It wasn't. We got outplayed again."
Kaapo Kahkonen's unbeaten streak, new lines and defensive pairings, and a tutorial the night before about what went wrong in the 5-1 meltdown Thursday were no match for an invisible-looking Avalanche squad that was just as dominant in a 6-0 shellacking of the Wild on Saturday afternoon at Ball Arena as it was in the previous matchup.
"These two games that we played we got a lesson in how to play hockey," Mats Zuccarello said after the Wild tied the worst margin of defeat in franchise history for a road game. "They played real well, and we didn't really have an answer for them. You gotta give them credit. They were better than us in every aspect of the game."
Colorado's No. 1 line continued to toy with the Wild, racking up seven points. Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen both scored, and Nathan MacKinnon added three assists.
"They're tough to beat when their top line is going," Zach Parise said. "They're tough to shut down."
Goalie Philipp Grubauer even got involved in the offense, earning an assist to go along with 31 saves for his fifth shutout of the season in a slightly busier game after a ho-hum 19 stops Thursday night.
Across the ice, Kahkonen's franchise-record winning streak for a rookie goaltender ended at nine — a run that's tied for the fifth longest by a rookie in NHL history. Kahkonen didn't have much of a chance to get to 10 since the Avalanche picked up where it left off, causing chaos in the Wild zone.