How will Wild match up against Avalanche?

The Minnesota Wild are set to drop the puck on the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Sunday night, as they get the series started on the road against the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche. 

After leaning on starring performances from Quinn Hughes, among others, in the first round to get past the Dallas Stars in six games, the Wild will face a completely different test when it comes to the powerhouse Avalanche in the Western Conference semifinal. 

On a recent episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Seth Toupal of the Locked on Wild podcast joined co-hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to break down the series. 

Carter Hutton: Forecasting this next series, as you look at the Wild playing the Colorado Avalanche. The Wild just knocked off the Dallas Stars; the Avalanche had a little bit of an easier matchup, I would say, against the LA Kings. How do you feel this matchup sets up now for Minnesota, which has gained a lot of confidence from beating Dallas?

Seth Toupal: This is going to be a very confident Minnesota team going in. They played the Avalanche pretty close throughout the regular season. This is going to be another series, just like we saw with Dallas, although I think the Avalanche are going to be able to do much better at five-on-five than the Stars were. 

So this series is going to be tight, and it’s going to come down to which team executes better on special teams. The Avs’ power play has not been great so far in the postseason. They weren’t all that good in the regular season either. When you get those chances, you’ve got to capitalize on them. 

The confidence that this Wild team now has, having exorcized that first-round exit demon, they are going to go into this series against the Avalanche ready to just unleash everything that they have. And as epic as this, this Wild vs. Stars series was, it’s going to be epic to the 10th degree against the Avalanche in Round 2. I don’t even know what to expect —  I’m seeing all this for the first time myself, and I’m just trying to tell myself to enjoy it as much as possible, while the ride is going on.

You can catch the full episode and more playoff talk right here…