Parise goes Wild vs. Avs in Game 6

The trend of home team wins, moves into the Colorado Avalanche’s favour as this series shifts back to Denver after the Minnesota Wild’s 5-2 win on Monday.

The big story heading into Monday night was the return of Avalanche forward Matt Duchene. Duchene missed the final eight games of the regular season and the first five games of this season with a knee injury he suffered in late March. He showed no ill effects of the injury, logging 18:52 of ice-time, registering one assist and winning 54 per cent of his face-offs.

However, Duchene’s return was spoiled by forward Zach Parise and the rest of the Wild squad. Parise got the Wild off to a blazing start deflecting a Ryan Suter shot past Semyon Varlamov on a power-play just 49 seconds into the game. Just under nine minutes later, Parise notched his sixth assist of the series to give the Wild a 2-0 edge. Heading into the third period, the game was knotted up at 2-2, but Parise once again broke the deadlock with a deflection goal. The Wild assistant captain later added an assist on an empty-net goal. His four-point performance now gives him 10 points, which has him tied with Nathan MacKinnon for the most points in the playoffs.

The win kept the Wild’s season alive and forced game 7 on Wednesday, but the odds are stacked against them as the home team has won every game in this series. Minnesota has had a hard time keeping the biscuit out of their net in Colorado. The Avalanche have scored a combined 13 goals in the first three games in Denver.

Last night was only the second of the first six games that was decided by more than one goal, so expect a tightly contested game 7. This has been a fantastic first round, and Wednesday could feature three game sevens, depending on what happens tonight between the Flyers and Rangers. Stay tuned, because this is just the beginning!