Tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET, the Minnesota Wild and Colorado Avalanche hit the ice at the Pepsi Center in Colorado for Game 7 of their first-round series as part of the 2014 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. The game can be live streamed for free here. Minnesota fans can hear all of the action on WCCO 830 while Colorado fans can do the same on KRWZ 930.
Minnesota was able to stave off elimination with a Game 6 home win to force Game 7 on the road while Colorado hopes to bounce back from that loss and win Game 7 on home ice to earn the right to play the Chicago Blackhawks in Round 2.
The home team has won each game of this series as the Avalanche took a 2-0 series lead in Games 1 and 2 in Colorado before the Wild took Games 3 and 4 at home to even the series. Colorado then hosted and won Game 5 and Minnesota roared back with a Game 6 triumph at Xcel Energy Center. It all comes down to tonight.
The Wild are confident after coming out of Game 6 with a decisive 5-2 victory, but are looking to win a game as a visitor in the only series in either conference that hasn't seen the road team win a single game.
"We have to be excited about this opportunity and go in there and play our best game of the series," coach Mike Yeo said per NHL.com. "We are going there with a real purpose in how we play that game. So it's going to be fun."
The Avalanche planned on using Matt Duchene in limited minutes in his first game back from injury in Game 6 as he started on the fourth line, however after he felt good first-year coach Patrick Roy upped his minutes and put him on the second line. He expects him to play regular minutes tonight.
"I thought he had a really good game," Roy told NHL.com. "It would have been normal for him to be a little bit rusty, but I thought he played outstanding."
Calder Trophy candidate Nathan MacKinnon is tied for the playoff lead with 10 points off of two goals and eight assists to lead the Avalanche while Paul Stastny has four tallies and five helpers for nine points and Ryan O'Reilly has found the twine twice while adding four helpers for six points.
Zach Parise is tied with MacKinnon with a playoff-best 10 points to lead the Wild off of three goals and seven assists while Jason Pominville has one marker and four helpers to tie Mikko Koivu (five assists) for second on the team with five points. Charlie Coyle is tied with Parise for the team's series lead with three goals while adding an assist for four points.
Darcy Kuemper will make his fifth start and sixth playoff appearance in the series for Minnesota after allowing seven goals and saving 99 shots while Semyon Varlamov will man the crease for his seventh game of the series after yielding 15 goals on 196 shots thus far in the series.
Only one team can move on when the Wild and Avalanche hit the ice at the Pepsi Center tonight for Game 7 of their Round 1 series as part of the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
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