Colorado's depth outshines Stars as Avs inch closer to top seed

There are lots of ways I could start this postgame piece off. Puns, alliteration, dramatic flair, making fun of Texas (a Colorado favorite). Instead, let’s just be real about what we saw on the ice Wednesday in Edmonton.

That was an ass-kicking.

The Avs took the last vestiges of shine off the Dallas Stars on Wednesday evening in a 4-0 shellacking that we’ll all overhype because Colorado looked great and Dallas looked like they didn’t even belong.

Funny, that. After a regular season where the Stars went 4-0-0 against the Avs, they looked helpless at times as the Avs skated circles around a Stars team that seemed to be deficient in not only talent but desire as well.

Playing without starting goaltender Ben Bishop and top defenseman John Klingberg, Dallas was already facing an uphill battle coming into this one.

The Avs took advantage early and often as they methodically built a four-goal lead throughout the game and never took their foot off the gas.

Goals from Cale Makar, Joonas Donskoi, Vladislav Namestnikov and Andre Burakovsky was a flex of sorts from the Avalanche. Through two games in the round-robin, Colorado is 2-0 while Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Gabe Landeskog all remain without goals.

Those guys all notched assists, however, because this is still the three-headed monster we’re talking about here. Granted, they were once again broken up as Landeskog played alongside Nazem Kadri but it didn’t matter.

All four lines rolled out positive shot metrics against an overmatched Stars team that at times looked completely disinterested.

Colorado’s special teams have been their most glaring weakness all year but the power play scored two goals today and essentially a third when Donskoi put home a rebound one second after the man advantage ended.

Entering the third period with a three-goal lead, there was no turtle to be found. The Avs outshot Dallas 13-6 and seemed to revel in stifling the Stars’ poor excuse for an offensive attack.

Pavel Francouz certainly played a role in that as he posted a 27-save shutout to keep this fascinating goaltender competition going but the reality is that he simply was not tested very much and certainly not at the level Philipp Grubauer was against St. Louis on Sunday.

This was a stark reminder at how unbalanced the western conference was this season as Dallas, a good-but-not-great team, was the fourth-best offering the conference had to give in a deeply flawed year. This was always a three-horse race and this process has shown born that fruit.

The Avs lead that race for now with one game left to go against the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday. Depending on how things go between Vegas and St. Louis tomorrow, it could be a battle for the top seed.

TAKEAWAYS

• There weren’t very many Avs who had tough nights against the Blues on Sunday but pretty much all of them had better games today. Burakovsky is the obvious example there as he was demoted from the top line to the third line and responded with two points, although both were pretty much power-play points.
• The swap resulted in multiple goals as Namestnikov poked a rebound home on a MacKinnon shot. Namestnikov had six points in nine games with the Avs after being acquired at the deadline and most of those points were him just banging rebounds into the net. He has no fear of going to the net and he’s able to create a reasonable facsimile of what Landeskog brings when he’s on that line.
• The Kadri line was once again in a shutdown role as Dallas had last change and went after Kadri with the Seguin line. Colorado did okay in that matchup, especially in terms of results, as the Seguin line ended up providing more frustration than fruition, but there were shifts in the first period where Seguin’s group got the best of Kadri and company. With all of Colorado’s other lines rolling right along, it wasn’t such a problem but it was another test of the Kadri line in the function Bednar wants to see them. Nice of the Dallas coaching staff to oblige, honestly.
• Pavel Francouz…what more can you say about this guy? Every time Philipp Grubauer plays well and issues a de facto challenge to Francouz to respond, he does. It’s certainly one thing for Francouz to watch the team in front of him beat up a mediocre Stars club and for him to keep them down and another for Grubauer to keep the Blues from pulling away from the Avs, but this thing has to be tied up. It continues to be a case of  Grubauer facing the tougher competition while Francouz puts up slightly better numbers. A truly interesting battle has developed in net and neither player is giving the other an inch.
• In the battle for the 12th forward spot, have to believe Matt Nieto took the lead here. He played a strong game and was noticeable offensively, the area where he has a tendency to struggle the most. He went hard at the net and was not shy about firing pucks when he had opportunities. One game left to make the call but I think we’re headed towards Tyson Jost as the odd-man-out.
• The seeding scenarios are mostly straightforward for Colorado as they sit 2-0 atop the table right now. Any result tomorrow between Vegas and St. Louis that ends in regulation means the Avs are guaranteed a top-two seed. If Vegas beats St. Louis in overtime and then beats Colorado on Saturday while the Blues take care of business against Dallas on Sunday, the Avs (2-1 in this scenario) would finish with the third seed behind Vegas (2-0-1 and the first seed) and St. Louis (2-1) as the Blues own the tiebreaker against Colorado due to regular-season points percentage. Obviously if Colorado wins Saturday, they are the first seed. If St. Louis beats Vegas in regulation and then loses to Dallas, the outcome Colorado-Vegas won’t matter as the Avs hold the tiebreaker over Vegas.  Got all that?