A stunning 9-6 Avalanche win over the Wild turns a defense-first series into a 15-goal frenzy

DENVER (AP) — Two of the NHL's best defenses and a pair of the game's ironfisted goaltenders are squaring off in Round 2, promising a paucity of pucks flashing the red light in the Minnesota-Colorado series, right?

Not in Game 1.

A whopping 14 players scored Sunday night, Colorado goalie Scott Wedgewood gave up a half-dozen goals — one more than he allowed in his team's sweep of the Los Angeles Kings in Round 1 — and yet the Avalanche prevailed 9-6 after Jesper Wallstedt surrendered a career-high eight goals before an empty-netter completed the madness.

“It was a weird one,” said Avalanche star Cale Makar, the only player to score multiple goals in the opener of a series that resumes Tuesday night at Ball Arena with both teams pledging to tighten up their defense.

“Weird game for sure,” Wild defenseman Jake Middleton concurred. “I mean, it’s the playoffs, you can’t be too surprised with what transpires.”

It was downright shocking to see so many goals, Avs center Nazem Kadri said.

“We did not expect that kind of game at all,” Kadri said. “In fact, quite the opposite.”

The Avalanche, who surrendered the fewest goals in the regular season, jumped out to a 3-0 lead over the almost-as-stingy Wild less than seven minutes into the game only to have to sweat it out and forge a comeback themselves after Minnesota scored five of the next six goals.

“It felt like the puck, the puck just had eyes today for them,” Wallstedt said.

There were five goals scored in each of the three periods.

“Yeah, it's nothing either of us wants,” Wedgewood said. “Obviously we want a couple of them back on both sides. But you’ve got to give credit offenses. It’s playoff hockey.”

The Avs, who won the President’s Trophy with the league’s best regular-season record, opened the playoffs with a pair of 2-1 nail-biters over the Kings. And the crowd clearly expected that pucks whacking the nets would be at a premium in this series, too.

“Versatility,” Kadri said. “That’s what we always talk about, whether we’ve got to go high-flying offense or lock-down defense, I certainly feel comfortable in both scenarios and I know this team does as well.”

Kadri looked at the bright side of the 15-goal slugfest, which he figured shouldn’t have been entirely unexpected given the Avalanche’s week off after sweeping LA while the Wild needed six games to dispatch Dallas in a competitive first round.

“You’ve got to win different ways come playoff time,” Kadri said. “I think we were a little loose and a little rusty defensively, but we’ll get that tightened up. I think it’s just being off for a little while and defensively trying to get engaged in the game took a little longer than expected for us.

“But at the end of the day, we found a way to win. On the flip side, the offensive side was going.”

Colorado captain Gabe Landeskog said that although both teams are touted for their defense, “we’ve got some really good shooters on both teams,” and that once it became a slugfest, it was all about surviving the onslaught.

“You have to find ways to win,” he said. “We took the lead and they tied it back up and then they took the lead and we tied it back up, it was just back and forth, you’re just trying to find a way to win the hockey game, you’re trying to find a way to stop the bleeding. And you’re just trying to settle into the game.

“It’s nice to be able to win games like this, not necessarily a coach’s dream or a player’s dream. We don’t want to give up six goals. So, it’s good to win this one, but we’ve got lots of things to clean up.”

Makar opened the third period with an unassisted goal to break a 5-all tie, and his wrist shot with 2:54 remaining — the fifth by an Avs defenseman — made it 8-6. This, after missing 17 minutes of the first period with a lower-body injury.

“That's Cale Makar doing Cale Makar things,” Landeskog said.

“Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to unpack in this one,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “Was a bit of a helter-skelter game. Obviously you can tell by the score. We’ll take a look at some things and take some lessons out of this one. Be ready for Game 2.”

Hynes insisted he never considered pulling his goaltender.

“No, I thought Wally played ... look what the score was,” Hynes said. “And their guy was in for a lot of goals against, too.”

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Minnesota Wild right wing Mats Zuccarello, left, redirects the puck at Colorado Avalanche goaltender Scott Wedgewood in the third period of Game 1 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup second-round playoff series Sunday, May 3, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Minnesota Wild left wing Kirill Kaprizov, front right, collects the puck as Colorado Avalanche defensemen Brett Kulak, front left, and Cale Makar, back, cover in the second period of Game 1 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup second-round playoff series Sunday, May 3, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar shoots the puck to score a goal against the Minnesota Wild in the third period of Game 1 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup second-round playoff series, Sunday, May 3, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Minnesota Wild left wing Kirill Kaprizov, left, congratulates right wing Mats Zuccarello after he scored a goal against the Colorado Avalanche in the third period of Game 1 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup second-round playoff series Sunday, May 3, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar, left, congratulates center Nathan MacKinnon after he scored a goal against the Minnesota Wild in the third period of Game 1 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup second-round playoff series Sunday, May 3, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico state prosecutors are seeking fundamental changes to Meta's social media apps and algorithms to safeguard children in the second phase of a landmark trial on allegations that platforms such as Instagram have created a public safety hazard.

Opening statements began Monday in the three-week bench trial to decide whether the platforms of Meta, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp, pose a public nuisance under state law.

In the first phase, jurors ordered $375 million in civil penalties against Meta, determining that it knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

Prosecutors are now asking a judge to impose fundamental changes aimed at reining in addictive features, improving age verification and preventing child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and closer oversight.

Meta has vowed to appeal the jury verdict and warned that it could eliminate Instagram and Facebook service in New Mexico if forced to comply with impractical mandates.

“The fact that we’re having a trial on nuisance is itself a remarkable outcome,” said Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law in California. “That theory is not well accepted as applied to the internet, and that theory doesn’t really fit the internet.”

A the trial reconvened Monday, state District Dourt Judge Bryan Biedscheid addressed concerns that the court might overreach its authority.

“I’m probably not the easiest sell on the idea where I would become a one-person legislator, judge and executive branch enforcer,” he said.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the jury verdict punctured the aura of invincibility protecting tech companies from liability for material on their platforms under Section 230, a 30-year-old provision of the U.S. Communications Decency Act.

A Los Angeles jury separately found both Meta and YouTube liable for harms to children, validating long-standing concerns about dangers of social media.

New Mexico prosecutors are demanding that Meta help remedy a mental health crisis among children through a series of safeguards and changes, including a redesign of algorithms that make content recommendations so they no longer prioritize constant engagement.

Prosecutors are also targeting other features linked to compulsive use such as “infinite scroll,” which continuously loads content; push notifications; and default settings that show tallies for “likes” and sharing. Their lawsuit also seeks improvements to age verification and other steps aimed at curbing child sexual exploitation.

And New Mexico wants child accounts on Meta platforms to have an associated parent or guardian, as well as a court-supervised child safety monitor to track improvements over time.

Executives have said the company continuously improves child safety and addresses compulsive use and that many demands from prosecutors are redundant.

Meta plans to call an array of technical experts as witnesses in arguing that the demands are impractical if not impossible and would force it to “disregard the realities of the internet.”

The company also argues that its platforms are being singled out among hundreds of apps that teens use, leaving children vulnerable on platforms with less robust protections. The company is invoking free speech protections that have shielded social media for decades.

“The state’s proposed mandates infringe on parental rights and stifle free expression for all New Mexicans,” Meta said last week in a statement.

The case is the first to reach trial among lawsuits filed by more than 40 state attorneys general on allegations that Meta contributes to a youth mental health crisis. Most are pursuing remedies in U.S. federal court.

Torrez, the state attorney general, said that puts the case in a unique position not only “to try and change the paradigm of how this company does business, but also how Big Tech generally is expected to do business going forward.”

Goldman said prosecutors may be venturing into uncertain legal waters just in seeking age verification mandates.

“In practice a court order saying that Facebook had to impose age authentication would have no Supreme Court textual support,” he said. “The Supreme Court might bless it. We don’t know.”

The first phase of the trial saw six weeks of testimony from witnesses including teachers, psychiatric experts, state investigators, top Meta officials and whistleblowers who left the company.

FILE - Visitors take photos at a sign outside Meta headquarters March 26, 2026, in Menlo Park, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

FILE - A recording of Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's deposition is played for the jurors on March 4, 2026, in Santa Fe, N.M. (Jim Weber/Santa Fe New Mexican via AP, Pool, File)