Marc-Andre Fleury didn’t leave the bench on Tuesday, but at least one Minnesota Wild teammate gave the goalie partial credit for the team’s shootout win.

Mats Zuccarello and Matt Boldy scored in the post-overtime shootout, lifting the Wild to a 2-1 win over the Colorado Avalanche, and grabbing a crucial extra standings point between these two division rivals.

Per Boldy, it was their shootout practice with Fleury that made the difference, despite mainstay goalie Filip Gustavsson getting the start, and the win, with 27 saves.

“We practice a little. Flower loves them, so to be able to have a guy like that who is willing to jump in there at the end of a practice and take three or four from each guy, it’s great,” Boldy said. “So, assist to Flower, I guess.”

Colorado went 0 for 2 in the shootout, on attempts by Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas. Zuccarello gave Minnesota the lead in the second period.

“It was a game that we knew it was important for us. I think we had to put the game on the ice that we did tonight,” said Wild coach John Hynes, whose team had lost five of its previous seven. “The thing is to me that’s a good team all year long regardless of who’s in our who’s out of our lineup.“When we play a strong game that is focused on attention to detail and good awareness and we have a strong compete level and we get that throughout the lineup, that’s when we’re a hard team to play against,” Hynes said. “We’ve been kind of building towards that. I would say coming out of the break that was probably our best game, complete game of what we like to see. So, it was good.”

Mackenzie Blackwood had 22 saves for Colorado, which still leads Minnesota by three points in the Central Division standings, although the Wild have played one fewer game. Colorado won the season series 2-1-1.

Minnesota emerged from the scoreless first period with a slight edge in shots, fueled by the only power play of the opening 20 minutes, after Wild forward Ryan Hartman drew an interference call near the Colorado net.

The Wild killed an early second period Colorado power play in which Avalanche forward Brock Nelson sent a shot off the crossbar.

“I saw Brock Nelson started celebrating there. So I was a little worried for half a second there,” Gustavsson said of Nelson’s crossbar shot. “I was waiting for the buzzer to go off. But it never did. So thanks (post) for that.”

Minnesota broke the scoreless deadlock thanks to a costly giveaway by the visitors. Necas tried a drop pass before crossing the blue line, only to see the puck drift to the stick of Boldy. Two quick passes later and Zuccarello was in alone on the Avalanche net, where he zipped a shot past the goalie’s glove for his 15th goal of the season.

Hynes gave the credit to Boldy, who has struggled to score lately, but started the play on the goal.

“We stripped the puck, and his effort – I mean, he had great chances again tonight,” Hynes said. “What I really like about Bolds right now is yes, the puck’s not going in for him, but his attitude, his competitiveness, playing both sides of the puck strong, continues to get scoring chances.

“He’s not overpassing. He’s doing the things that Bolds needs to do to be a dominant player. And he’s doing those things,” Hynes said. “And when you see that maturity in the player and the mental toughness in the player to stay with it and keep doing it to impact the game in multiple ways, which he does, that’s a great sign for him. But it’s also a great sign for a team.”

On the next shift, Necas’ chance to redeem himself was thwarted by Gustavsson, who made a sliding across the crease save to keep Colorado off the board.

Colorado finally forged a tie with under six minutes to play in regulation, when defenseman Samuel Girard’s seeing-eye backhander was deflected by Joel Kiviranta and sailed past Gustavsson. Officials took a look to make sure it was not batted into the net by hand, then called it a good goal.

“This time of the year things are tightening up,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “We’re playing pretty good hockey, but it’s tight checking, especially when you’re playing Minnesota. But yeah, good hockey game.

“I liked our team’s game tonight, a lot actually,” Bednar added. “Thought we did a really nice job with our checking game. Still, we’re able to carve out some good chances. We hit a few posts tonight and had some good opportunities.”

It was the first game back in their home state as members of the Avalanche for defenseman Ryan Lindgren, from Lakeville, and Nelson, from Warroad. Both were acquired by Colorado last week in trade deadline deals. Nelson had played a game in Minnesota last month while he was with the New York Islanders, where he spent the first 901 games of his NHL career.

Former Holy Angels prep star and Minnesota Gophers defenseman Erik Johnson was a healthy scratch for Colorado on Tuesday