Postgame: Wild expects a very different Avalanche team in Saturday's rematch

Zach Parise sounded the alarms this morning that the Wild needed to get out of bad habits.

I reminded him after tonight's 5-0 pounding of the Colorado Avalanche that could have been a heck of a lot worse than the final score.

"We responded well," Parise said, laughing, admitting he was nervous.

Turns out Parise also had his game face on during an all-business post-morning skate scrum with reporters.

Parise was outstanding tonight, as was the rest of the Wild, which registered a franchise-record 48 shots, out-attempted Colorado 78-29! in shots and had the puck virtually all game.

Somehow in a game where the Wild spent virtually the entire night in the offensive zone, the Wild out a 4-2 power play deficit. Pretty remarkable, eh? But the Avs were no better there either, managing no shots on those four power plays against last year's 27^th-ranked PK.

But, as all-business coach Mike Yeo pointed out in the postgame, the pivotal kills came in the first period in a scoreless game. Wild was much more assertive against Colorado's talented cast.

Mikael Granlund was just awesome. He had two assists, won battles, shot pucks and defended well. He was also a career-best plus-4.

Jason Pominville, the third cast member on the line who led Minnesota in goals last season and was second in the NHL in scoring in the preseason, had a goal and assist for his 126^th multi-point game and honestly asked how many goals the Wild would have scored if he didn't miss the net on five of his nine stabs at the Colorado goal.

Nino Niederreiter, relentless all game, had seven shots and a goal. Jared Spurgeon scored a pretty awesome goal on a pretty awesome setup from Parise after a tremendous shift by Granlund, Ryan Suter scored a goal and assist and was plus-3 and Darcy Kuemper got to be a spectator with 16 saves for his third career shutout.

I got Kuemper to the side after the game and I'll probably write about this in Saturday's paper, but he talked a lot after the game about how much he has learned the last year about how to play and function in a game he doesn't see a lot of shots in. Frankly, in the Wild's stingy defensive system, you better have a goalie who can stay in the game not seeing a lot of shots.

Remember, in his season debut last year in Toronto, the Wild played a very similar game to tonight where it dominated at least on the shot clock. And Kuemper, I believe, gave up three goals on seven shots in like 32 minutes to get chased.

"Our top two lines need to be our best players and tonight they got outplayed and outworked," he said. "If we want to have some success, they're going to have to be our best players."

Added captain Gabriel Landeskog, "That's what happens. A team that wins battles looks that good against a team that doesn't."

Yeo was all business postgame. There was no celebration by any means.

As Suter said, the Avs were "stale."

As Granlund said, "It's cliché. But it's all about the next game."

Saturday's rematch will be quite different as they grasp the energy their crowd provides in their home opener.

"To sit here and expect us to go and play 82 games like that, it's not going to happen," Yeo said.

But Yeo felt good going into this game and said there was never a moment of stress, never a moment where he felt the game was slipping away.

He said he could go down the list and name every player that played well. He tried hard to not single out anybody even when reporters asked about Parise or the top line.

He did acknowledge that he loved the grit and energy that Ryan Carter provided. Carter joked that it probably wasn't the best start to his Wild career when he took a minor – one of three for him on the night – on his shift.

That's it for me. I have got to rise early to write my Sunday package (the first of the season!) before practice. Please read the gamer, notebook and Jim Souhan's column in Friday's paper.