The Minnesota Wild got just enough offense and great goaltending to keep up their mastery of the Colorado Avalanche.

Niklas Backstrom made 23 saves for his first shutout of the season, Antti Miettinen scored, and the Wild beat Colorado 1-0 on Wednesday night.

Minnesota, which has won seven of nine, has not lost to Colorado in four games this season, including two shootout wins. Backstrom has three of those wins.

“It’s seems to be a one-goal game every time we play against them,” said Backstrom, who notched his 18th NHL shutout.

Peter Budaj had 21 saves for Colorado, which has lost three straight at home but only one in regulation.

The Wild scored the only goal they needed 5:57 in when Miettinen pounced on Andrew Brunette’s rebound for his eighth goal.

“It kind of bounced right on my tape there,” said Miettinen, who has seven goals and nine points in his last eight games.

Minnesota didn’t think the early goal was going to stand up, but the Avalanche, coming off a 3-1-1 road trip, couldn’t generate much offense. They had only 13 shots in the final 40 minutes and 23 overall despite having six power-play opportunities.

“We have to be better on the power play,” Avalanche coach Joe Sacco said. “We’ll continue to work on it and we’ll get better at it. It was probably the difference in the game.”

That and the play of Backstrom. He wasn’t asked to do much, but when Colorado turned up the pressure in the third period he came up big.