Avalanche rally from 3-0 deficit to beat Wild in overtime
Colorado trailed 3-0, then scored three times late before Brett Kulak won it in overtime. The comeback sends the Avalanche to another Western Conference final and resets expectations.
The Avalanche turned a 3-0 hole into one of the NHL playoffs’ most jolting finishes, scoring three times in the final stretch and beating the Minnesota Wild 4-3 in overtime at Ball Arena to clinch the second-round series. Brett Kulak finished it 3:52 into overtime, but the turning point came long before that, when Colorado stopped playing like a team trying to survive and began dictating the pace.
Jared Bednar changed the game by changing his goaltender, inserting Scott Wedgewood after the first period after Mackenzie Blackwood had been beaten in Minnesota’s early surge. From there, Colorado tightened its structure and started chipping away. Jack Drury cut the deficit to 3-2 with 3:33 left in regulation, setting the table for Nathan MacKinnon, who tied it with 1:23 remaining and forced overtime with the building leaning entirely toward another improbable rescue.
The sequence mattered as much as the score. Colorado had spent most of the night chasing, but once Drury made it a one-goal game, the Wild no longer had the cushion that had given them control. MacKinnon’s late equalizer changed the emotional weight of the series in a single shift. Kulak, who scored his first goal since January, then ended it and sent Denver into a celebration that also carried historical weight: the Avalanche closed out a playoff series on home ice for the first time in 18 years, since beating Minnesota in 2008.
The result says as much about Colorado’s ceiling as its resilience. The Avalanche finished the regular season with the NHL’s best record at 55-16-11 and 121 points, winning the Presidents’ Trophy, and their depth showed throughout the series. Colorado had 16 different players score against Minnesota, after opening the matchup with a 9-6 win in Game 1 in which eight Avalanche skaters found the net. Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar remain the headliners, but this series again showed how much the supporting cast can matter in a long postseason run.
For Colorado, this is also about status. The Avalanche are heading to their eighth Western Conference final since moving to Denver, and only their second trip past the second round in the last nine playoff appearances, with the other ending in the 2022 Stanley Cup run. Bednar called the comeback special and, in a separate account, said it was the most stressful win of his career. That is the frame now: not just a comeback, but a reminder that Colorado still has the talent, depth and nerve to turn another championship pursuit into something real.
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