The franchise record home win streak came to an end last night as the Wild fell to the Avalanche 5-4 in a gutsy performance that fell just short. Ironically it was the Avalanche who had last beaten the Wild at the XCEL Energy Center back on January 30th by the count of 5-1. The Wild turned around the next day and triumphed 4-3 in OT to beat Colorado which began the record 11-game home win streak.

Dean Evason had his team prepared and ready from puck drop in period one and the boys responded with a solid first 20 and took a 1-0 lead into the room after following the opening frame. However, the Avalanche flexed their muscle early and often in the second and quickly erased the Wild lead and turned that into a 4-1 deficit for the home squad, who were playing in front of 3000 State of Hockey faithful l, for the first time since last March.

Colorado's speed and puck movement were on full display in that middle period as they had the Wild chasing the puck or on their heels nearly the entire 20 minutes.

Much like the Wild have done all season, they continued to battle. Ryan Hartman who has been the Wild's Swiss Army Knife all year, created a turnover of Jacob McDonald's wrister from the point that carromed to Ian Cole, who found Hartman Streaking up the ice for a breakaway. Hartman fanned on his original shot, but had the presence and patience to recover while in full flight to slide the puck across to Nick Bjugstad who deposited the biscuit into the open Avalanche net.

Colorado was still in control but the Wild had leveled the playing surface a bit and were applying more pressure in the Avalanche zone. Two consecutive Colorado powerplays killed much of that Wild momentum though. The second of those man advantage opportunities for Colorado turned out to be the dagger for the Wild as they put on a clinic of how to effectively move the puck around the perimeter of the zone and back with the eventual seem pass to Gabriel Landeskog on the back door for the tap in.

Marcus Johansson got the Wild closer with his 5th of the season and Kevin Fiala continued his hot streak with a powerplay goal to draw the Wild within one. They came close in the final seconds as Johansson had a chance but his redirect just missed.

The game ended with tempers elevated and some pushing and shoving that should add to the excitement for tomorrow's rematch.

Less than a week until the trade deadline, what is Guerin going to do?

Can he find the deal partner to move Parise?

Matt Dumba is still the big chip to be flipped, but is the right price available, and what is that price exactly?

Dumba is absolutely a high quality defenseman, that brings a lot of intangibles along with his tremendous skating ability and skill. He is a lightning rod type player who plays with a ton of energy. He has learned to harness that and tap into it better when the team needs that spark. Not to mention he is a right shot defenseman who are still a commodity across the league.

Dumba's $6M salary which still has two years remaining after this season is very reasonable as well. That said, those $6M start to become a problem for the Wild as they have over $21M committed to the other three top Wild dmen, Spurgeon, Suter, and Brodin. Combine that with new deals needed for Fiala, Kirill Kaprizov, and Joel Eriksson Ek and it becomes a real issue for Guerin.

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