A year later and a round earlier, the Dallas Stars are in the same situation — heading to Denver with a chance to end Colorado’s season.
Dallas routed the Avalanche 6-2 in Game 5 on Monday night to take a 3-2 lead in their Western Conference quarterfinal series. Now it can move on with a win in Game 6 on Thursday night.
Same scenario but a different situation. This season Mikko Rantanen is wearing green and white instead of burgundy and white, and he can help send his former team home for the summer.
Rantanen scored his first goal of the postseason in Monday’s victory, taking pressure off the Finn.
“Huge relief for him,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “You could tell by our group’s reaction how happy our guys were for him. I mean they feel that, they see him carrying that around (pressure). Having said that, I can’t tell you how professional he’s been in his approach every day, it’s been team first.”
The Stars are up 3-2 in the series despite only leading for a combined 61 minutes in the five games. They have stifled Colorado’s power play and scored timely goals — two in overtime.
The Avalanche have outscored Dallas 15-13 in the series but are converting on 17.7 percent of their power-play chances. The Stars have scored on 22.2 percent of their opportunities.
Colorado is averaging 33.2 shots per game, third in the field of 16 playoff teams, but has struggled to score at times.
“You can look at all the numbers you want, but if you’re not putting those in the net you’re not going to win at the end of the night,” Avalanche forward Jonathan Drouin said.
Dallas has spread the wealth offensively in the first five games. Four players have two goals and 16 skaters have registered at least one point.
Goaltender Jake Oettinger was shaky in Game 1 (a 5-1 loss) and Game 4 (4-0 setback) but came up big in two overtime wins, and again Monday night.
If Colorado loses Thursday night, the reshaping of the roster throughout the season will have yielded two playoff wins. It would be the third time in the last six seasons the Stars will have eliminated their division rival and fifth time in seven different postseasons dating to 1999.
The key to avoiding an early summer could lie with goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood, one of 11 additions this season. He entered Monday’s Game 5 leading the NHL postseason in save percentage (.939) and was second in goals against.
After allowing five goals on 13 shots — the first one nine seconds into the game and another fluky goal at the end of the first period — he was ninth in save percentage and eighth in goals against.
“I’ve had bad goals go in before, but it sucks when there’s two in the first period in a playoff game,” Blackwood said. “That’s unfortunate, but not much you can do about it now. Just try and reset.”
–Field Level Media
