DENVER – Tyler Seguin and Logan Stankoven scored two goals each and goalie Jake Oettinger thwarted Colorado’s high-powered offense, halting the Avalanche’s third-period comeback prowess in Saturday night’s 4-1 victory that gave the Dallas Stars the lead in their second place in the Western Conference. round series.
“I don’t think a coach has ever seen a perfect game, but I will tell you it’s as close to a perfect road game as you can play, in my opinion, in this situation,” Stars coach Peter DeBoer said. after Dallas took a 2–1 series lead.
“We knew they would come out with guns blazing in the first period. You knew their background. They challenged their best players, and their coach, after the last game,” DeBoer said. “So we knew a lot was going to be thrown at us at the start of the game. And our composure throughout the night was excellent.”
The Stars have yet to play from behind in this series against Colorado’s high-octane offense led by Cale Makar, Valeri Nichushkin, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen.
Dallas killed off three power plays for the second game in a row and Seguin scored the tiebreaking goal in the second period for a 2-1 lead that Oettinger held – he stopped 29 of 30 shots – as a pair of empty netters in the final minutes finally gave Dallas some space to breathe.
“We knew coming into this rink how these guys play. And we also know how we play on the road,” Seguin said. “So we knew it would be a big challenge. I think the next game will be a bigger challenge.”
Game 4 is Monday night at Ball Arena, where the Avalanche are now 33-10-1, including 2-1 in the playoffs. The Stars were the best in the NHL at 26-10-5 on the road during the season and won three of four playoff games away from the American Airlines Center.
The Avs pulled goaltender Alexander Georgiev with just under 2 minutes left and Seguin scored an empty net with 1:37 left and Stankoven scored a second empty net with 28 seconds left.
“That was one of the best third periods we’ve played in the entire postseason,” Oettinger said. “Just be smart and don’t take penalties. I don’t think they had many scoring chances in the third, so we learned from our mistakes in Games 1 and 2.”
The Stars regained home-court advantage in the best-of-seven series, strangling a high-powered Colorado offense that entered the night averaging 5 goals per game in its first seven playoff games.
Nichushkin was held scoreless for the first time in these playoffs. He was aiming to become the third player in NHL history to have an eight-game goal streak during the playoffs.
The Stars took a 2-1 lead into the third period after breaking the tie on an odd run with just under five minutes left in the second period. Evgenii Dadonov skated down the left side and sent a pass through the slot that Seguin redirected to Georgiev, who made 19 saves on 21 shots.
The Stars led 1-0 after one period despite having just three shots on goal in the first 18 minutes. Miro Heiskanen moved Stankoven into the slot after a turnover in the Avalanche zone by Devon Toews and Stankoven beat Georgiev with a wrister inside the left post with 1:21 remaining.
That ended a nearly two-month scoring drought for Stankoven, the 21-year-old rookie who made his NHL debut with six goals in his first twelve games from Feb. 24 to March 20 and then went 21 games without scoring. , including Dallas. ‘ first nine playoff games.
“It’s always good to contribute,” Stankoven said. “I felt like I was doing the right things, but I just couldn’t find the back of the net.”
Colorado coach Jared Bednar lamented his ineffective special teams, which is 0-for-6 on the power play over the last two games.
“It could have made a difference for us,” he said, “especially early in the game.”
Bednar called up Rantanen and MacKinnon after Game 2 and said he thought they both responded well, although that energy and effort didn’t produce another comeback or offensive outburst.
Colorado’s only breakthrough came when MacKinnon hit three Stars players and raised a backhand that Oettinger stopped. The rebound fell behind Oettinger and Rantanen tapped in to tie it 1-1 midway through the second period.
“We did a lot of good things,” MacKinnon said, “we had a lot of chances, a lot of good looks, just Oettinger was great and we made some big mistakes that cost us.”
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