Stars roll past the Avalanche to take 2-1 series lead
DENVER — Tyler Seguin and Logan Stankoven scored two goals each and goaltender Jake Oettinger thwarted Colorado's high-powered offense, stanching the Avalanche's third-period comeback prowess in a 4-1 win Saturday night that gave the Dallas Stars the upper hand in their Western Conference second-round series.
“I don't think a coach has ever seen a perfect game, but I'll tell you that's as close to a perfect road game as you can play, in my mind, in this situation," Stars coach Peter DeBoer said after Dallas took a 2-1 series lead.
“We knew they going to come out guns blazing in the first period. You knew their home record. They had challenged their best players, their coach had, after the last game,” DeBoer said. “So, we knew we were going to get a lot thrown at us early in that game. And our composure throughout the night I thought was outstanding.”
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 three power plays for the second straight game and Seguin scored the tiebreaking goal in the second period for a 2-1 lead that Oettinger held up — he stopped 29 of 30 shots — with a pair of empty netters in the closing minutes finally gave Dallas some breathing room.
“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'd be a big challenge. I think next game is going to 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 an NHL-best 26-10-5 on the road during the season and have won three of four playoff games away from American Airlines Center.
The Avs pulled goaltender Alexander Georgiev with just under 2 minutes remaining and Seguin scored an emptynetter with 1:37 to go and Stankoven added a second empty-netter at with 28 seconds remaining.
“That was one of the best third periods we've played the whole postseason," Oettinger said. "Just being smart and not taking 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-ice advantage in the best-of-seven series by throttling Colorado's high-powered offense that entered the night having averaging 5 goals a game in their first seven playoff games.
Nichushkin was held scoreless for the first time in these playoffs. He was looking to become the third player in NHL history to have an eightgame goal streak during the playoffs.
The Stars took a 2-1 lead into the third period after breaking the tie on an odd-man rush with just under five minutes left in the second. Evgenii Dadonov skated down the left side and sent a pass through the slot that Seguin redirected past Georgiev, who had 19 saves on 21 shots.
PANTHERS 4 RANGERS 3
Brady Skjei scored on the power play with 3:11 left to help host Carolina stave off a sweep by winning Game 4 of the second-round playoff series.
Skjei's shot from the the point came off a feed from Tuevo Teravainen, with the puck zipping past Igor Shesterkin to catch the post and bang into the net. That was Carolina's first goal with the man advantage in 17 tries in the series, and it finally pushed Carolina ahead for good.