Colorado kicked off the first leg of their back-to-back tonight in Minnesota.

They made pretty clean work of things against Vancouver, but tonight posed some new challenges.

Sam Girard has entered the NHL’s Player Assistance program and will be unavailable to the Avs for an indeterminate amount of time.

Alexandar Georgiev started in net, and Logan O’Connor is still day-to-day with an upper-body injury and did not play. Tomas Tatar was also out.

As a result, Riley Tufte remained in the lineup and received an opportunity on the second line with Ryan Johansen and Jonathan Drouin.

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before, but their own penalties made life a little bit harder for the Avs tonight. Still, they prevailed and took Central Division points home winning 3-2.

Joel Kivivranta was elevated to the third line with Ross Colton and Miles Wood.

Kurtis MacDermid joined the fourth line.

The energy between both teams was a little flat to start.

Colorado took the first penalty and Minnesota took theirs immediately after.

The Avs created a few chances and seemed to gain a little life.

Josh Manson broke out the puck for Tufte. Tufte made the pass in the neutral zone for Bo Byram to carry in on entry. Byram dropped the puck back for Colton to wrist past Filip Gustavsson from the left circle.

The Avs closed out the first with the lead and carried a little bit of that momentum into the first half of the second.

They had to be on their toes early after Colton took a high-sticking penalty and knocked a couple of Joel Eriksson-Ek’s teeth out.

Colorado had to defend against the double minor and did so successfully.

Near the midway point, the Avs had another powerplay opportunity and Jake Middleton went off for interference.

Nathan MacKinnon passed the puck to Mikko Rantanen at the offensive blueline. Together they got the puck to Devon Toews up high. Toews fed MacKinnon at the top of the left circle and MacKinnon one-timed it to the net. Val Nichushkin was in the perfect place and the puck bounced off his body and in.

It was Nichushkin’s seventh goal in six games. Since his daughter was born on November 8th, he’s had eleven points in eight games.

A few moments later, a broken play in the Avs’ end caused an unfortunate turnover. Byram blocked a shot and Tufte went to collect it but it went right through him onto Marco Rossi’s stick instead. Rossi sent the puck on net and Kirill Kaprizov ensured the loose puck sitting in the crease went in.

Two consecutive penalties knocked the Avs off their game a bit. They staved off the first kill, but Minnesota hemmed them in their own end and drew a delay of game call after the puck was tipped out of play.

The Wild cycled the puck and Kaprizov passed to Mats Zuccarelo behind the goal line. Doing his best Mikko Rantanen impression, Zuccarelo passed to Eriksson-Ek at the top of the crease to chip it in. Josh Manson righteously tried to tie up Eriksson-Ek at the netfront, but he was able to get inside him at the right second.

The final minutes of the second period did not favor Colorado, but they were still the better team.

To drive home a point, the fourth line stepped up early in the third period.

During a good shift, Fredrik Oloffson, Andrew Cogliano, and MacDermid fought to keep possession alive. Manson’s shot went wide of the net, and Olofsson rimmed it around for Cogliano who whipped it over to MacDermid coming down the slot all alone.

MacDermid went forehand-backhand and deked Gustavsson, sending the puck backdoor on his backhand. 

It was the game-winning goal in his fifth game of the season and his second-ever career game-winning goal. His other came with the Avs last season. He impacted the game with just 3:30 ice time tonight.

Colorado received three powerplay opportunities in the third period and did their best to hold onto their lead.

Another Byram penalty in the third period put the Avs on their fifth kill of the night, but it continued to be successful.

There was a flurry in the final minutes that gave quite a scare, but they came out of it all right with the help of a late Wild penalty.

Outside of one goal-against on the powerplay, their PK did what was asked of them on four of five kills.

At times it felt like a magic trick that was going to run out of magic, but they held on when they needed to.

The Wild finished with more high-danger chances in the end, but Colorado outshot them 25-21 and took the win with them.

Georgiev had a solid outing with 19 saves on 21 shots and 12 saves on 14 dangerous chances.

It wasn’t a perfect game, but considering their immediate turnaround before tomorrow night’s contest back in Ball Arena, it might have been a tactful strategy intended to conserve instead of overextend.

The contributions of tertiary players stood out: MacDermid’s game-winning goal created by the fourth line, Colton’s tally from Byram and Tufte, and the contributions on the PK from newcomers Kiviranta and Olofsson.

To expand on that, Olofsson has been with the team straight from camp, so he’s not as new there – but he had to step into a bigger role with O’Connor out of the lineup.

And in just his sixth game, Kiviranta clocked in significant time on the kill and did a great job of things to ho hold it down. In all situations, Kiviranta was very responsible tonight.

Maybe tonight would have been even easier with more contributions from the top guys, or maybe they’re saving a little for tomorrow’s game against Calgary.

Either way, the Avs figured out the right mix of things to get the job done.

So long as it’s not their game plan every night, it was effective on this night.