DALLAS – Miles Wood screamed for the puck and delivered the game-winner in overtime to the Colorado Avalanche as soon as he got it.
Wood scored on a hard backhander at 11:03 of OT after receiving the puck from Andrew Cogliano, and the Avalanche, after trailing by three goals in the first period, defeated the Dallas Stars 4-3 in the opener of their Monday series. round of the Western Conference.
“Instead of just turning and shooting… (Cogliano) looked up and Wood was fresh and hit his D,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “When Woody gets like that, it’s hard to stop him. He’s fast and powerful, and he just drove that home.”
Staying ahead of defenseman Miro Heiskanen, Wood placed the puck around Jake Oettinger to cap off just the Avalanche’s third three-goal comeback to win a playoff game in their history – and first since 1997.
“There is a commotion over there in the corner. … I was screaming ‘Chip, chip, chip.’ He made a great play and from then on I just used my speed,” Wood said, still breathing heavily from the winning play. “I definitely kicked everything into high gear there.”
Cale Makar had a goal and two assists for Colorado, while Valerie Nichushkin had a goal and an assist. Nathan MacKinnon scored the tying goal just 39 seconds into the third period when he was left wide open just to the left of the net, and Mikko Rantanen, who had two assists, shot off the post midway through the third period.
“It would have been easy to give up after the first period,” MacKinnon said. “But we felt we were playing better than the score showed. We wanted to see this through.”
Alexander Georgiev made 19 saves in winning his fifth consecutive start for the Avs. But Dallas, after nine shots on net in the first period, had just a combined seven the rest of regulation and six in overtime, when it denied Tyler Seguin twice in less than a minute and knocked down a couple of long shots from Thomas Harley.
“He has played very well for us. We’re all really excited about him,” Wood said of the goalie. “He let three in there in the first place quickly, but was solid from then on.”
Stars goaltender Oettinger stopped 22 shots, ending his streak of six games with two goals or fewer.
Dallas led 3-0 in the first period against the 2022 Stanley Cup champions, just two nights after wrapping up a seven-game series against last year’s champions Vegas in which both teams finished with 16 goals and the margin never exceeded two. goals.
“It’s a difficult turnaround for us as a group. I thought we got off to a great start,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “I think the fatigue from Game 7 hit us in the second half of the game.”
Jamie Benn had a goal and an assist for the Stars, who lost the series opener at home, just as they did in the first round when they lost their first two games. Ryan Suter and Wyatt Johnston also scored goals.
Game 2 is Thursday night.
Colorado scored 28 goals in five games against Winnipeg, and went a full week since closing out the series at five games. The Avs had three comeback wins against the Jets, but none of them were due to more than a one-goal deficit.
It wasn’t the first time this season the Avalanche came back from a 3-0 deficit in Dallas. They trailed early in the second period in November before scoring six unanswered goals in a 6-3 victory.
“You can’t breathe with these guys,” Benn said. “They are a great team.”
Colorado scored two power-play goals in the second period, with Nichushkin scoring his eighth goal of the playoffs and extending his scoring streak this postseason to six games before assisting on Makar’s goal that put them up 3-2.
Nichushkin, Dallas’ 10th overall draft pick in 2013, picked up the loose puck after Makar fired a shot past Oettinger that Ryan Suter couldn’t clear. Makar hit a wrister about 15 yards from the net on his next shot.
Suter, the 39-year-old defenseman whose 1,444 career regular-season games are the most by any player without winning a Stanley Cup, put the Stars up 1-0 with a 60-foot shot near the left wing just 7 1 /2 minutes of play. Georgiev never saw the puck because of all the traffic in front of the net after Suter received a pass from Matt Duchene, who had just gotten up after taking a hit.
The Stars made it 2-0 shortly after a straight winner from Benn, with the 20-year-old Johnston scoring from the top of the left circle for his fifth goal this postseason.
Dallas was on a 5-on-3 power play when Benn scored with three minutes left in the first period, deflecting a flying puck into the net.
And the Stars captain almost scored another goal in the final seconds on another power play. He made a deft move and shot as he fell to get the puck behind Georgiev before defenseman Josh Manson cleared it off the goal line.
