DALLAS – OK, so my money wasn’t on Miles Wood as an overtime hero.
But what beauty, eh?
The Colorado Avalanche third-line winger has always had excellent speed, and he displayed it at 11:03 of overtime Tuesday night, bursting down the left side, skating around star defenseman Miro Heiskanen, before to beat Dallas Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger with a clever backhand fake.
The Avs came back from a 3-0 deficit to win the first game, 4-3 before a stunned American Airlines Center crowd.
“The wood was fresh and he hit their D,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “(Andrew) Cogliano made a nice play to give him the win. When Woody gets going, he’s hard to stop. He’s fast and powerful and he just took it to the house. Excellent game of skill.
This series was shaping up to be a classic clash between Cup contenders, and the first game did not disappoint.
Does anyone remember that the Avalanche lost a game in those Stanley Cup playoffs?
Since dropping that 7-6 loss to Winnipeg on April 21, the Avs have now won five straight and, in doing so, have cracked two excellent defensive teams.
It’s just one game in this series, but the numbers don’t lie. According to Natural Stat Trick, the odds were 25-12 for the Avs in this game.
“It took us a little while to get to our game tonight,” Bednar said. “There were some things we needed to improve on (after the first half). We fixed this issue.
You like the “C” pt. 5#GoAvsGo | #ALLIN pic.twitter.com/3Skr46uiCq
– x – Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) May 8, 2024
Rust versus rest
I was chatting with Paul Maurice on Sunday, a day after the Bruins outlasted the Maple Leafs in overtime in Game 7, and the Florida Panthers head coach expressed concern about the teams only advancing to the next round 48 hours after peaking in Game 7. Well, his concern was well justified since the Bruins handily won the first game in South Florida, just like the Panthers did a year ago year after a Game 7 overtime victory in Boston, then flew to Toronto and beat the Leafs in Game 1 after barely getting. pause.
Full of adrenaline, that’s it. Get back to it right away, feeding off the game-winning high of game seven.
And so that held me back going into Game 1 of this Avs-Stars series, with Dallas having just beaten Vegas in Game 7 on Sunday night, and then turning around 48 hours later to host Game 1.
“I want to replicate Game 7,” Stars head coach Pete DeBoer said Tuesday morning during his press briefing.
Well, he was successful for a period.
The Stars were humming from the start and took a 3-0 lead in the first period. It was almost 4-0, but Avs defenseman Josh Manson saved a sure goal by knocking the puck away before it crossed the goal line with seconds left in the first period during a power play stars. Turns out it was a moment worth remembering considering how the rest of the match played out.
The Avs hadn’t played in seven days, and it showed in the first half. But unlike the Panthers the other night in Game 1, the Avs found their next gear. Highligths.
“It’s a tough turnaround for us as a group,” DeBoer said after the game. “I thought we got off to a good start. I thought the fatigue from Game 7 hit us in the second half of that game. I thought our group came together and really made an effort in overtime, and had some opportunities in overtime.
Defending MacKinnon
Easier said than done, of course. But on the day Nathan MacKinnon was nominated for the Hart Trophy as regular-season MVP, the Avs’ dynamic No. 29 had a quiet opening through the first two periods of Game 1, at least by his lofty standards .
But it was MacKinnon who grabbed a rebound off a Cale Makar shot just 39 seconds into the third period as the Avs erased a 3-0 deficit.
By the end of the night, MacKinnon was damn dangerous on almost every shift. Like the rest of his team, he shook off the rust.
DeBoer was asked Tuesday morning about the most effective way to defend MacKinnon. And the Stars coach said the best possible outcome was to have the Avs superstar spend most of his shifts in his own zone. And we definitely saw some of that in the first half and some of that in the second half.
The cat-and-mouse game between the coaches was DeBoer, as expected, wanting Chris Tanev on the ice every time MacKinnon was there, and Avs head coach Jared Bednar trying to make as many changes as possible for MacKinnon when Tanev wasn’t. on the ice. It was a little easier to do in the second half with the long change.
It was also interesting to note that MacKinnon’s tying goal in the first quarter of the third period came while Tanev was on the bench. I wonder why Tanev wasn’t on the ice there.
But this is of course the match of the series, Tanev vs. McKinnon.
Nathan MacKinnon less than a minute into the third period!#GoAvsGo | #ALLIN pic.twitter.com/2eCTaxaUEi
– x – Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) May 8, 2024
Powerful power play
The Avalanche lit up the Jets with six power play goals on 16 opportunities (37.5 percent) in the first round, and the Stars have been absolutely keen to make sure they limit those opportunities in this series. Discipline will be essential for the Stars.
For example, the second period here Tuesday evening. The Stars led 3-0 before conceding back-to-back penalties.
The Avs took advantage of both, first with Valeri Nichushkin scoring a power play goal, then with Maker, and suddenly it was a one-goal game in the blink of an eye. The Avalanche are absolutely deadly on the power play, and Makar’s wrist shot was a thing of beauty Tuesday night.
The penalty that led to that second power play can’t happen either. Stars winger Craig Smith wrapped his hands around Makar behind the Avs net while he was on the forecheck. The crowd hated that decision, but it’s an all-day penalty and you can’t get 200 feet away from your own net. These are the kind of penalties Dallas can’t take in this series. Not with this Avs power play.
“We had the lead, we went into the second period and turned the puck over in the neutral zone, which led to a penalty,” DeBoer said. “We took another penalty 200 feet on our side. And you know, they’re a team that strikes fast. You can’t make mistakes in these situations. A hard lesson to learn in game 1, but glad you don’t learn it in game 6 or 7 in an elimination game. We have to be smarter than that. They have that quick hitting ability that you have to be mentally sharp for 60 minutes to beat them.
Those two power play goals brought Colorado to life, and the Avs finished a strong second period, coming at Dallas in waves and forcing turnovers and certainly getting better looks. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Avs enjoyed a 10-1 advantage in scoring chances at five-on-five in the second period, even though they didn’t score at even strength.
But the tide had changed, allowing MacKinnon to tie the game early in the third period.
Deployment of D stars
DeBoer essentially faced five defenders in the final five games of the first-round series against Vegas.
Stars No. 6 defenseman Nils Lundkvist played 2:21 in Game 3 against Vegas, 1:09 in Game 4, 2:57 in Game 5, 4:33 in Game 6 and 3:09 during game 7.
This raised the question of whether the Stars would or could do the same for an entire series in the second round.
Well, Lundkvist only played 4:07 in the opener against Colorado on Tuesday night, and not a single change in the third period or overtime.
So it appears the game plan for Dallas is to go with five Ds, at least early in this series. We’ll see how realistic this approach is against a Colorado team whose quicker forecheck exhausted the Jets defense in the first round. Not to mention that this is a series with one match every other day, with no doubles days. I don’t know if Dallas can continue this with five D’s.
Mixing time
DeBoer had seen enough after a lackluster second half and put his forward lines in a blender.
The evening began with:
Robertson-Hintz-Stankov
Dadonov-Duchène-Séguin
Benn-Johnston-Pavelski
Faksa-Steel-Smith
In the third period, the Stars had at one point:
Robertson-Hintz-Johnston
Benn-Duchène-Stankoven
Dadonov-Faksa-Steel
Pavelski-Steel-Seguin
The beauty of the Stars’ forward depth, in my opinion the deepest in the NHL, is that you can flip a lot of those lines without putting players in positions they aren’t used to. DeBoer never hesitates to change his look on offense and, let’s face it, despite coming back to beat Vegas in the first round, the Stars have only scored 16 goals in seven games (2.29 goals per game).
So it will be interesting to see how that plays out in this series. They didn’t generate much after the first period tonight.
“We have to find…some of our scoring has to step up,” DeBoer said after the game. “We were waiting for a series, more of a game now, for some of this.”
(Photo: Sam Hodde/Getty Images)