DALLAS — The Dallas Stars obtained sooner or later off between their Game 7 victory over final 12 months’s Stanley Cup champion, and the beginning of what might be a drastically completely different second spherical within the Western Conference playoffs towards well-rested 2022 champ Colorado.
Coach Pete DeBoer and the top-seeded Stars gained a good sequence towards Vegas when every workforce scored 16 objectives. They now face the Avalanche, who by time the puck drops for Game 1 on Tuesday evening could have gone a full week since wrapping up their opening spherical with 28 objectives in 5 video games towards one of many league’s prime defensive groups.
“We’re going to have to work ourselves into the series to see how we’re going to have to win,” DeBoer mentioned 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 mentioned. “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 middle Nathan MacKinnon’s view, the Avs needs to be prepared for one factor: “Their best, hardest game,” he mentioned. “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.”
Valeri Nichushkin had seven objectives, probably the most by the 12 completely different Colorado gamers that discovered the web within the opening spherical. Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen are the primary teammates in NHL historical past with simultaneous five-game purpose streaks to open a postseason.
Only three different groups have opened the playoffs with at the very least 5 objectives in every of their first 5 video games. The Avs are the primary because the 1994 New York Rangers, who then gained their final Stanley Cup title.
Winnipeg had allowed an NHL-low 2.41 objectives a sport within the common season, whereas standout goalie Connor Hellebuyck had a 2.39 goals-against common in his 60 video games.
Stars goalie Jake Oettinger had a 1.95 goals-against common and .925 save share towards the Knights, and stopped 73 of 74 pictures within the third interval or time beyond regulation.
Oettinger allowed greater than two objectives solely as soon as during the last 11 regular-season video games. The lone exception was a 7-4 win at Colorado on April 7 — he allowed 14 objectives in three regular-season appearances towards the Avs.
“The third period-overtime numbers show what we already knew here, that he’s a rise-to-the-occasion guy,” DeBoer mentioned. “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 towards the Stars, with Alexander Georgiev in web for all of them, additionally permitting 14 objectives with an additional sport. He had a 3.03 GAA and .893 save share within the first spherical towards Winnipeg.
Avalanche ahead Zach Parise and Dallas defenseman Ryan Suter are former teammates and good mates who nonetheless hope to hoist the Stanley Cup for the primary time.
Parise and Suter, each 39 years previous, have been collectively for 9 seasons with the Minnesota Wild from 2012-21.
Suter is in his third season with Dallas, the place he signed in free company after leaving the Wild, and his 1,444 profession regular-season video games are probably the most ever for a participant with no Cup title. Third on that checklist is his present Stars teammate, 39-year-old Joe Pavelski with 1,332 video games, and Parise is fifth with 1,254.
Parise has introduced a veteran presence to the Colorado lineup since becoming a member of the workforce as a free agent in January. He mentioned this might be his last NHL season.
Pavelski’s 73 profession playoff objectives are probably the most for a U.S.-born participant, however he did not have a single level whereas managing solely six pictures on web within the seven-game sequence towards 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,” mentioned DeBoer, who additionally 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.”
Sports Writer Pat Graham in Denver contributed to this story.
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