A couple of questions heading into Saturday night's home game against Minnesota following the Avalanche's 3-1 win against the Wild on Friday at the Xcel Energy Center:
Can the Avalanche complete a sweep of the home-and-home series to build a four-point lead for third place in the Central Division, and will Cody McLeod get suspended again for his major boarding penalty against Jonas Brodin?
The Avalanche remains in third place -- the top three teams in each division are guaranteed playoff berths -- with an 18-6-0 record and 36 points in 24 games. The Wild is fourth with a 15-8-4 record and 34 points in 27 games.
"It's good for us," Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said of playing the Wild again, this time at the Pepsi Center. "When you finish 29th (in the NHL standings) the year before, you're always curious to see how far can we go. These are good tests. These are good teams. Our division is strong. There's good tests for everybody and I thought this was a good challenge for our team. I know they're going to bounce back and we're going to have to be ready."
The Avalanche lost McLeod, who was promoted to a line with Matt Duchene and Ryan O'Reilly, to a game misconduct for his hit against Brodin at 17:24 of the first period. McLeod was given a five-game suspension for his boarding penalty against Detroit's Niklas Kronwall in an Oct. 17 game.
My guess is, because he's now considered a repeat offender, the NHL will further penalize McLeod. Unlike Kronwall, Brodin did return and played 20:21 for the game, but I still think McLeod will have to sit out some games. Not that the Avalanche can afford to lose more forwards with Paul Stastny (back spasms) questionable for Saturday and Alex Tanguay (knee) out for at least another week.
The Avalanche had a 1-0 lead at the time of McLeod's penalty, thanks to a goal by defenseman Jan Hejda at 3:45. The penalty-killing units limited the Wild to one shot against goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere during the five-minute power play that carried into the second period.
Shortly after, at 4:24, rookie Nathan MacKinnon deflected Gabriel Landeskog's shot past Wild goalie Josh Harding for a 2-0 lead for his fourth goal of the season and first in six games. Three of his goals have been scored on the road.
"It was great to kill that one because certainly things could have turned in their favor if they would score," Roy said. "We didn't give them too many chances, too many shots. It was good for us. It was a great kill, an important moment in that game."
The Wild got that one back on a goal by Danny Heatley at 15:02 of the period, and Minnesota outshot the Avalanche 16-5 in the third period. Landeskog sealed the win by scoring into an empty net with 19.7 seconds remaining in regulation.
"In the third period they played with more urgency, they wanted to get that goal to tie the game," Roy said of the Wild. "I thought we played well enough defensively. We had some moments where we weren't as sharp and Jiggy made those big saves."
Making his first start since Nov. 14, when he allowed five goals on 23 shots in a 7-3 loss in St. Louis, Giguere stopped all 16 shots in the third period and finished with 27 saves for his sixth win in as many decisions, the first goalie in franchise history to win his first six.
"Quite frankly, I wasn't happy with my last game in St. Louis," Giguere said. "I didn't get the loss there, but I probably should have got it. I wanted to bounce back and hopefully Patrick will remember this one."
(Semyon Varlamov relieved Giguere in the second period and gave up the Blues' third and fourth goals. Giguere returned in the third and allowed two more goals, but Varlamov was tagged with the loss because of an antiquated NHL rule that pins the defeat on the goalie who allows what it considers to be the game-winning goal. That turned out to be the fourth goal when Ryan O'Reilly scored the Avalanche's meaningless third goal with 8:54 to play, making the Blues' fourth goal the game winner.)
Giguere bounced back in style Friday.
"I thought we played a pretty good road game. We scored the first goal and that's so important," Giguere said of an Avalanche team that has gone 16-0-0 when scoring first. "We played the first two periods the way we wanted to play. We expected a push from them, which they did in the third, but we came out of it with the win.
"It's a back-to-back against a divisional rival, our first game of the season against them. It was very important to have a good game. We didn't want to go back to Denver absolutely having to win. We want to go back and get another big win, but we should be proud with what we did tonight."
*****
Landeskog scored the empty-net goal on his only shot of the game and added two assists ... The defense pairing of Hejda and Erik Johnson had another strong game. Hejda played 23:25, had a goal on two shots, three blocked shots, killed penalties and was plus-3. Johnson played 19:59, had one shot, two blocked shots, one assist and was plus-2 ... The Avalanche is 15-0-0 when leading after two periods. "We're confident after two periods and pretty even keel as well," MacKinnon said.