Stars quickly go from tight series over reigning Cup champ to big-scoring '22 champ Avs in 2nd round
DALLAS (AP) — The Dallas Stars got one day off between their Game 7 victory over last year’s Stanley Cup champion, and the start of what could be a drastically different second round in the Western Conference playoffs against well-rested 2022 champ Colorado.
Coach Pete DeBoer and the top-seeded Stars won a tight series against Vegas when each team scored 16 goals. They now face the Avalanche, who by time the puck drops for Game 1 on Tuesday night will have gone a full week since wrapping up their opening round with 28 goals in five games against one of the league's top defensive teams.
“We're going to have to work ourselves into the series to see how we're going to have to win,” DeBoer said Monday. “My initial reaction, just watching what they did to Winnipeg, is I don't think we want to get in a track meet. ... At the same time, we're not going to sit and try to defend in the entire series. I think we've got other layers to our game."
Dallas can score, too, with a franchise-record eight 20-goal scorers in the regular season and ranking third in the NHL at 3.59 goals per game. The Avs had a league-high 3.68.
While the Stars hope to have an advantage going right from one series to another one, the Avalanche are drawing on experience from long layoffs during their 2022 Stanley Cup title run. They had a break of more than a week between the first and second rounds, and another before the final when they knocked off Tampa Bay in six games.
“We approached this week the same as we did then,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “The way you handle every situation it’s not just like, you know, willy-nilly, you’re trying to think of the best way to do it. You’re gathering information from your team on rest, work, how they’re feeling, what we can go over, just trying to fine-tune everything so we’re ready to go when the puck drops.”
In veteran center Nathan MacKinnon’s view, the Avs should be ready for one thing: “Their best, hardest game,” he said. “We’re prepared to work our butts off and compete. We expect a very, very, very hard series. But we’re confident in ourselves. We feel like we have a deep team and we get the job done.”
BIG SCORERS
Valeri Nichushkin had seven goals, the most by the 12 different Colorado players that found the net in the opening round. Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen are the first teammates in NHL history with simultaneous five-game goal streaks to open a postseason.
Only three other teams have opened the playoffs with at least five goals in each of their first five games. The Avs are the first since the 1994 New York Rangers, who then won their last Stanley Cup title.
Winnipeg had allowed an NHL-low 2.41 goals a game in the regular season, while standout goalie Connor Hellebuyck had a 2.39 goals-against average in his 60 games.
GOALIES
Stars goalie Jake Oettinger had a 1.95 goals-against average and .925 save percentage against the Knights, and stopped 73 of 74 shots in the third period or overtime.
Oettinger allowed more than two goals only once over the last 11 regular-season games. The lone exception was a 7-4 win at Colorado on April 7 — he allowed 14 goals in three regular-season appearances against the Avs.
“The third period-overtime numbers show what we already knew here, that he’s a rise-to-the-occasion guy,” DeBoer said. “He recognizes the big moments, the important times of a series, of a game. And he finds another level for us, regardless of what’s happened before.”
Colorado was 3-1 this season against the Stars, with Alexander Georgiev in net for all of them, also allowing 14 goals with an extra game. He had a 3.03 GAA and .893 save percentage in the first round against Winnipeg.
VETS SEEKING CUP
Avalanche forward Zach Parise and Dallas defenseman Ryan Suter are former teammates and good friends who still hope to hoist the Stanley Cup for the first time.
Parise and Suter, both 39 years old, were together for nine seasons with the Minnesota Wild from 2012-21.
Suter is in his third season with Dallas, where he signed in free agency after leaving the Wild, and his 1,444 career regular-season games are the most ever for a player without a Cup title. Third on that list is his current Stars teammate, 39-year-old Joe Pavelski with 1,332 games, and Parise is fifth with 1,254.
Parise has brought a veteran presence to the Colorado lineup since joining the team as a free agent in January. He said this will be his final NHL season.
SCORELESS JOE
Pavelski's 73 career playoff goals are the most for a U.S.-born player, but he didn't have a single point while managing only six shots on net in the seven-game series against Vegas.
“I have zero concern that Joe's fingerprints are going to be on our playoffs before this is said and done, regardless of what the stat lines say,” said DeBoer, who also coached Pavelski in San Jose. “They already are in all the other things he does, both in the dressing room and all the little intangibles on the ice.”
___
AP Sports Writer Pat Graham in Denver contributed to this story.
___
AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
