Dallas came to town for the final leg of this week’s divisional showdown. Fortunately for Colorado, they would be the opposite of a Stars team on the second leg of their back-to-back – a position the Avs are no stranger to.
Dallas won 5-2 over the Arizona Coyotes last night and sat in second place with 96 points. With a regulation win tonight, Colorado – who started the night with 94 points – could take their second-place position.
After the deflating loss to the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday, the importance of a victory tonight grew: not just for valuable division points, but the morale boost. It’s important for Colorado to demonstrate further aptitude in competing against strong teams – even a tired Dallas team would be no easy feat.
First Period
At 8:54, a good shift from the top line kept the puck inside Dallas’ end. To keep the puck in the zone, Nathan MacKinnon fired it deep and Mikko Rantanen chased it along the boards. He passed to Nathan MacKinnon now alone in the slot, and MacKinnon one-timed Rantanen’s feed in past Jake Oettinger on the fourth shot of the game. It was MacKinnon’s 96th point.
As the period winded down, Bo Byram went to the box for holding. Colorado had a successful kill.
With 28 seconds left in the period, Mikko Rantanen took a boarding penalty, and the Avs would be on the defense to start the second period.
The shots were close: 10-9 in favor of Dallas.
Second Period
Colorado staved off Dallas, and soon after, Matt Nieto drew a tripping penalty and gave the Avs their first powerplay chance. Through their first two penalty kills, they only allowed one shot on net in each.
On the powerplay, Val Nichushkin was the lone player to register a shot.
A few minutes later, Andrew Cogliano made a great play to take the puck away from Ryan Suter in the neutral zone. He passed to Logan O’Connor on entry and O’Connor moved around Miro Heiskanen and patiently waited to fire his shot past Oettinger.
At the midway point, J.T. Compher accidentally continued to play with a broken stick and was sent to the box. The Avs nearly killed it, but with ten seconds left, Tyler Seguin scored. Jason Robertson looked like a shark moving along the perimeter in search of the perfect lane. He fed the shot through the crease to Tyler Seguin at the right post and he tapped it in.
Six minutes later, Compher took another penalty this time for tripping. Despite the Seguin goal, the kill looked great yet again this time allowing no shots to get through to Alexandar Georgiev.
In the final minute, Dallas was called for too many men.
J.T. Compher won the faceoff, Mikko Rantanen collected the puck and sent it to MacKinnon high in the slot, and MacKinnon fired another one-timer similar to the first goal with 12 seconds left. He was up to his 97th point.
Colorado continued to create and control possession more effectively than it did in the first period. Still, Dallas posed a threat with the most high-danger chances.
Third Period
At 9:09. Wyatt Johnston tapped the rebound in off a wrap-around attempt from Evgenii Dadonov. The Avs challenged the goal for goaltender interference because Suter shoved Logan O’Connor into Georgiev just before he scored.
The challenge was successful and the goal did not stand.
Following the close call, the Avs played with an appropriate amount of pressure. It was actually their strongest period in terms of sustaining pressure in the Stars’ end. They continued to create.
With just over four minutes, Dallas pulled Oettinger to bring on the extra skater. A minute in to the man-advantage, Jason Robertson blocked Val Nichushkin’s initial shot attempt to defend the empty net, but Nichushkin regained the puck and passed to Mikko Rantanen. Rantanen was able to direct a shot on net, and Nichushkin tipped it in to bring the game to 4-1.
Shortly after, Bo Byram went off for tripping, and the Avs would close this one out on the kill.
That’s the thing about good teams. Dallas was not done. Joe Pavelski scored on the subsequent powerplay to make it 4-2, and the Stars called for a timeout to strategize their game plan for the final 1:16.
With 11 seconds on the clock, Mikko Rantanen sailed the puck down the ice into the empty net bar down. It was his 49th goal. Simultaneously, Rantanen and MacKinnon gained solid ground in their chase for 50 goals and 100 points, respectively.
Colorado would advance to second in the division with the 5-2 win over Dallas.
To look at just the box score, 5-2 feels dominant. Make no mistake, the Avs effectively dispatched the Stars, but it wasn’t effortless. They had to build period by period to continue ramping up the pressure because Dallas never went away during this game.
Alexandar Georgiev made 26 saves and even attempted to ship the puck down the ice into the empty net late in the third period.
It was not only important because of the division points on the line, but it was also important for the Avs to respond to their performance against Minnesota wherein Bednar called out engagement issues. In added fortune, the Minnesota Wild fell to Vegas tonight.
Observations
Coach’s challenge: Jared Bednar is no stranger to a coach’s challenge. He was 3-1 last year, and went 3-3 and 7-3 the year before. In the 2019 season, he had two challenges fail in one game against Dallas.
There was some poetic justice for his successful challenge tonight against Dallas, but the circumstances were very different.
Bednar said his confidence in requesting the challenge was high. “I thought it the second I saw it. I thought it was goalie interference. I asked the other coaches, they felt the same way. Brett [Heimlich] included, he had it pulled up right away,” said Bednar. “You can’t go into the goalie on your own and you can’t force someone else in there. It’s the exact same read to me, like he cross-checks them in there, he has no chance of making that save when the rebound popped out. So I thought there was a really good chance it was getting turned over.”
When asked if he looked to Georgiev’s reaction following the play, Bednar was quick to answer. “Never. Because they think every one is goalie interference,” he laughed.
He added further explanation. “Because they can’t see. Like they’re watching the puck and reading the play, they can’t see what live players are running into them if it’s on their own or not. They can be adamant that they got bumped but you have to know the reason why they’re getting bumped.”
