Avalanche shake off early rust, complete big comeback in Game 1 win

DALLAS -- The Colorado Avalanche have played 252 games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 1995-96, their first season in Denver, and they did something Tuesday they had done only once before.

They came back from a three-goal deficit to win.

Forward Miles Wood scored 11:03 into overtime to give the Avalanche a 4-3 victory against the Dallas Stars in Game 1 of the Western Conference Second Round at American Airlines Center, after they had fallen behind 3-0 in the first period.

It had been 27 years since Colorado’s last comeback like this. The Avalanche fell behind the Chicago Blackhawks 3-0 in the first period in Game 6 of the Conference Quarterfinals and rallied for a 6-3 victory April 16, 1997.

The goal-scorers in that game included Blackhawks defenseman Gary Suter and Avalanche center Joe Sakic. Suter is the uncle of Stars defenseman Ryan Suter, who scored the first goal Tuesday. Sakic is Colorado’s president of hockey operations.

“We didn’t know if we could come back or not but we wanted to at least try, and you never know what can happen in playoff hockey,” Colorado center Nathan MacKinnon said. “Sometimes it’s hard to hold leads. We’ve been there too.”

The Avalanche hadn’t played since April 30, when they finished a five-game series against the Winnipeg Jets with a 6-3 win. The Stars were coming off a 2-1 win against the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights in Game 7 on Sunday.

That was a big factor. Colorado was rusty early; Dallas was sharp. The Stars took a 2-0 lead, then padded it to 3-0 with a 5-on-3 power-play goal.

“We needed to ramp up, not settle down,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “That was an intense hockey game, and we got caught watching a few times. I don’t want to say lazy, but the work ethic and intensity and commitment that you need wasn’t there early, so we’re giving up chances, we’re taking penalties, reaching, tripping. We’re not using our legs to skate and check.

“Like, we had lapses, momentary lapses in our game, that put us on our heels. You can’t rest on the ice in the NHL in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, not against a team like Dallas, right? We were doing some resting out there. We were watching other guys work, and the work wasn't fluid enough as a group of five as what it needed to be.”

It was almost 4-0. Dallas forward Jamie Benn put the puck into the crease late in the first period, but Colorado defenseman Josh Manson batted it out of the air.

“Every little bit helps,” Manson said.

Over the next 40 minutes, the Avalanche found their legs while the Stars lost theirs. Dallas took two penalties in the second period; Colorado capitalized with power-play goals by forward Valeri Nichushkin and defenseman Cale Makar. Then MacKinnon tied it 3-3 early in the third.

“They’re a quick-strike team, so you just can’t make mistakes in those situations,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “Tough lesson to learn in Game 1, but glad you’re not learning it in Game 6 or 7 in an elimination game. We’ve got to be smarter than that. They’ve got that quick-strike ability that you’ve got to be mentally sharp for 60 minutes in order to beat them.”

It was more than that, though.

Colorado outshot Dallas 17-7 and led 45-27 in shot attempts in the second and third.

The Avalanche’s top players especially tilted the ice. At the end of regulation, they had 74.29 percent of the 5-on-5 shot attempts when the first line of Nichushkin, MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen was on the ice. It was about the same for the first defense pair of Makar (70.27) and Devon Toews (74.19).

Dallas did dominate overtime. The Stars outshot the Avalanche 6-4 and led in shot attempts 16-9. Goalie Alexandar Georgiev had to make two big saves on forward Tyler Seguin and one on forward Wyatt Johnston.

“The fatigue from the Game 7, I thought, hit us in the second half of that game,” DeBoer said. “I thought our group rallied, though, and really made a push in overtime, had some opportunities in overtime.

“But I think at the end of the night, when you look at the scoresheet, their big guys all kind of delivered and are all over the scoresheet, and I thought a couple of our guys were, but we need to find … Some of our scoring has to step up. We’ve been waiting for a series plus a game now for some of that.”

That DeBoer said that is significant. To this point in the playoffs, he has been saying he cares only about winning, not producing. But if they aren’t producing, the Stars probably won’t be winning against the Avalanche.

The comeback might have been rare for Colorado in the playoffs. But a lot of the elements within it were not. The Avalanche came back to defeat the Stars three times in the regular season, including once from a three-goal deficit.

Doesn’t bode well for Dallas.