Tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET, the Colorado Avalanche and Minnesota Wild take the ice at Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota for Game 4 of their Round 1 best-of-seven Stanley Cup Playoffs series. The game can be live streamed for free here. Colorado fans can hear all of the action on KRWZ 930 while Minnesota fans can do the same on WCCO 830.
Colorado looks to take a 3-1 series lead back home for Game 5 and to bounce back from its first loss of the series while Minnesota hopes that home ice will prove to be as kind to them as it was when they won Game 3 and got into the series.
The Avalanche took the first two games in Colorado with a 5-4 overtime win in Game 1 and a 4-2 regulation win in Game 2. The Wild battled back in Game 3, earning a tough and gritty 1-0 win on Tuesday.
The Avalanche are looking to take a big step in this swing game, but they'll be without one of their best defenseman after Tyson Barrie was taken out on a knee-to-knee hit by Wild forward Matt Cooke, who was subsequently suspended seven games. Barrie will miss 4-to-6 weeks with an MCL injury.
Colorado doesn't need any extra motivation to try and win tonight.
"The key for us is just to make sure we're focused on playing a solid game [Thursday]," first-year coach Patrick Roy said per NHL.com. "We've been focusing on things that we can do and adjustments that have to be made and how we want to play, not looking for revenge or rallying."
The Wild realizes that a win or loss tonight could prove which way the momentum swings going back to Colorado for Game 5.
"We know it's a swing game, for sure," Wild coach Mike Yeo told NHL.com. "We would love the opportunity to go back to Colorado with some momentum, we'd love the opportunity to go back to Colorado and hopefully they're feeling a bit of pressure. I think that game is going to be an important one."
Zach Parise has yet to find the back of the net but he leads the Wild with four points off of four assists while Mikko Koivu hasn't found the twine yet either but has three helpers and Charlie Coyle leads the team in goals with two for two points in the series.
Paul Stastny (three goals, four assists) and Calder Trophy candidate Nathan MacKinnon (one tally, six helpers) lead the Avalanche and are tied for second overall in the playoffs with seven points apiece while Gabriel Landeskog is tied with Stastny for the team lead with three goals for three points in the series.
Semyon Varlamov will be in net for Colorado tonight after allowing seven goals on 111 shots through the first three games of the series while Darcy Kuemper will start for Minnesota after posting a shutout in Game 3 while making 36 saves in two appearances.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs continue when the lights come up at the Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota on the Avalanche and Wild for Game 4 of their best-of-seven series.
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