The Minnesota Wild (39-20-4) have heated up in recent weeks and will try to stretch their winning streak to six games on Sunday against the Colorado Avalanche (46-14-5).
Colorado’s Cale Makar has just set a new franchise record for most goals scored in a season by a defenseman (24) and bookmaker Bovada has the odds at +200 for him strike again on Sunday. The likeliest scorer for the Avalanche is Mikko Rantanen with the odds at +125 and the odds are the same for Minnesota’s top scorer Kirill Kaprizov to light the lamp.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: March 27th, 9:30 A.M. (EST)
The two teams clash for the third time this season and Minnesota is looking to turn the tide in the matchup after losing both of the first two meetings. Colorado won the first game easily 4-1 and the last meeting on Jan. 16 ended with the Avalanche taking a 4-3 victory via a shootout.
Minnesota had just hit form when these two teams last met and considering the team’s recent hot spell, they should be competitive again against the league leaders.
Kaprizov, who’s notched 80 points in 62 outings this season, will have a big part to play and the Wild also need a top-notch performance from goaltender Cam Talbot.
Talbot’s form has been inconsistent since December and the team even went out and got three-time Stanley Cup champion Marc-Andre Fleury in case Talbot isn’t able to turn things around by the time the playoffs come around. The 34-year-old has improved his play lately, but he will now be pushed all the way by Fleury.
Talbot enters Sunday’s match-up with a personal six-game winning streak. He’s upped his record for the year to 26-12-1 and boasts a 2.82 goals-against average with a .910 save percentage and two shutouts.
This is a big test for Talbot as he faces the second-best offensive team in the league. Colorado has scored 3.82 goals per game and they make things look very easy on most nights. Even injuries don’t seem to bother the team as they have gone 5-0-1 since captain Gabriel Landeskog dropped out of the lineup because of knee surgery.
Landeskog is one of five different 20-goal scorers on the team and there are a couple of players very close to joining the gang. The Avalanche can get goals from all over the place and they also don’t concede a lot, which makes them a very tough team to beat.
