DENVER – Wild coach Dean Evason's message to his team Thursday night after a 5-1 debacle at Colorado made it clear that what had just taken place had to be a one-off.
"You have to have a short-term memory after a game like that," said goaltender Cam Talbot, who made a career-high 50 saves on an eye-popping 55 shots.
But before the players got a chance to redeem themselves in the rematch Saturday afternoon at Ball Arena, they had to relive the rout during a video session Friday evening.
"We can put it to bed, but yet we can learn from what happened," Evason said. "They played extremely well. We played extremely poorly, and the best thing is we can get right back at it."
As forgettable as the performance was from the Wild's perspective, the team couldn't completely dismiss it, not when the action was littered with breakdowns that require attention.
That was featured in the presentation players watched Friday, with most of the issues concentrated in the Wild's zone, where the team struggled to alleviate the Avalanche's pressure because players kept turning pucks over.
"They possess the puck better than anybody in the National Hockey League in the offensive zone, and we allowed that to happen by not getting it the heck out of there," Evason said.
Colorado's top line, in particular, made the Wild pay for those miscues. Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen racked up 10 points, including four goals, and had 15 total shots.