Playoff Roundup: The Wild Hand the Avalanche Their First Playoff Loss

Mathis Therrien
Playoff Roundup: The Wild Hand the Avalanche Their First Playoff Loss
Credit: Capture d'écran Twitter

While the Montreal Canadiens had the night off last night, we were treated to two more games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Both teams, still undefeated in this year's playoffs—the Colorado Avalanche and the Carolina Hurricanes—were in action.

Here is a recap of those two games.

The Avalanche suffer their first playoff loss of 2026

The series between the Avalanche and the Wild moved to Minnesota for the first time last night for Game 3.

Trailing 2-0 in the series, the Wild had no choice but to win in front of their home crowd.

And sure enough, the Wild found a way to win Game 3 and hand the Avalanche their first loss, after the Avalanche had swept the Los Angeles Kings and won their first two games against the Wild.

Minnesota's top players delivered, as Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, Quinn Hughes, and Brock Faber led the Wild to a 5-1 victory.

Kaprizov and Faber each recorded three points, while Boldy and Hughes each tallied two, with Boldy climbing to the top of the playoff scoring leaderboard with his seventh goal.

In short, the Wild are back in the series, and as expected, we're likely in for a long and thrilling series.

The Avalanche lead the series 2-1.

The Hurricanes are already waiting for the Habs or the Sabres in the conference finals

And that's it—it's all over for the Philadelphia Flyers and their Cinderella run, as they were eliminated last night by the Carolina Hurricanes in just four short games.

Matvei Michkov was not in the Flyers' lineup, as the young Russian had a very unremarkable playoff run.

The Canes swept the Flyers with a 3-2 overtime win, courtesy of Jackson Blake.

Carolina thus remains undefeated in the 2026 playoffs, having recorded two consecutive sweeps—first against the Ottawa Senators and now against the Philadelphia Flyers.

And in those eight games, they've allowed only ten goals total (five against each opponent), which is truly impressive.

Still, despite everything, the Canes have had an extremely easy run so far without any real adversity, facing two teams that no one expected to go far.

And now, Carolina will be on a break for quite a while, as they're already waiting for the winner of the series between the Montreal Canadiens and the Buffalo Sabres, which is tied 1-1.

The Hurricanes have therefore played four games before the Habs and the Sabres have even played their Game 3.

They'll have plenty of time to rest and observe/analyze the play of their potential opponents, who will be wearing themselves out in the upcoming games.

Let's see if this will be an advantage for the Canes, or if they'll be rusty.

The Hurricanes win the series 4-0.


Overtime

– Here are tonight's top scorers.

(Credit: NHL.com)

– On the schedule today: two games.

(Credit: Google/NHL)
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