Avalanche rally from 3 goals down, defeat Stars in OT in Game 1

DALLAS -- Miles Wood scored at 11:03 of overtime for the Colorado Avalanche, who rallied from three goals down to defeat the Dallas Stars 4-3 in Game 1 of the Western Conference Second Round at American Airlines Center on Tuesday.

Wood skated down the left wing past Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen, cut across the crease, and tucked a backhand past the left pad of Jake Oettinger.

“[Andrew Cogliano] made a great play. He chipped it through the neutral zone and skated on it," Wood said. "I’m happy the puck crossed the goal line. The best part was celebrating with the teammates. That’s what it’s all about.”

Cale Makar had a goal and two assists, Valeri Nichushkin and Nathan MacKinnon each had a goal and an assist, and Mikko Rantanen had two assists for the Avalanche, who are the No. 3 seed from the Central Division. Alexandar Georgiev made 19 saves.

“It took us a little while to get to our game tonight,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “They capitalized on their chances in the first period, and we capitalized on some opportunities in the second and third. They came out again in overtime and put it on us, but I thought [Georgiev] made some great saves throughout the course of the game. We limited some scoring chances through the middle portion of the game, but the couple of chances we did give up were some good ones.”

Jamie Benn had a goal and an assist for the Stars, who are the No. 1 seed from the Central. Oettinger made 22 saves.

Game 2 of the best-of-7 series will be here on Thursday.

“There’s lots of positives," Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. "Listen, you’re not going to play your best game every time. I knew there would be some fatigue and a little bit of an emotional letdown coming off Game 7 (a 2-1 win against the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday). I was actually surprised at how sharp we were to start, but it did hit us in the middle part of that game. You also knew that they might be a little rusty at the start, but as they got comfortable, they’d get better because they had been off for a week. I think that’s probably what you saw.

“I was actually surprised how well and how hard we pushed in overtime. I thought we had the better looks at that point.”

Ryan Suter gave Dallas a 1-0 lead at 7:26 of the first period with a shot through a screen from the left point.

Wyatt Johnston made it 2-0 at 10:55. Benn won a face-off to Joe Pavelski, who tapped the puck over to Johnston for a shot that beat Georgiev blocker side from the top of the left circle.

Benn pushed it to 3-0 at 16:56, deflecting Jason Robertson's shot from above the circles on a 5-on-3 power play.

“It would have been easy to fold after that first period, but we felt like we were playing better than the score showed. We wanted to see it through, and definitely happy to get the comeback,” MacKinnon said. “Guys were upbeat, positive after the first. We didn’t know if we could come back or not, but we wanted to at least try. You never know what can happen in playoff hockey. Sometimes it’s hard to hold leads. We’ve been there, too.”

Benn almost scored his second power-play goal with nine seconds remaining in the first period, but his attempt at an open net was batted down along the goal line by Avalanche defenseman Josh Manson.

“Hockey is a funny game. A bounce here or there, you can be up another goal or down,” Benn said. “We're going to keep sticking with it here. We thought we had some good looks to win that game and it just didn't go our way.”

Nichushkin made it 3-1 at 5:31 of the second period, tapping in a loose puck near the left post on a power play. It was his League-leading 8th goal of the playoffs.

“You can't take a breath with these guys. They're a great team, they come at you,” Benn said. “I think they took over that second period and found a way to get one early in the third."

Makar cut the lead to 3-2 with another power-play goal at 9:08 of the second, scoring glove side from above the circles.

“It’s not an ideal spot when we are playing down from three goals, but it was a closer game at that point than the score indicated. A couple of goals went off of us, and one went off my stick," Makar said. "At the end of the day, it’s playoff hockey, and there is just no quit. If you are going to look at this game, I feel like, as a group, we just stuck with it and grinded it out and found a way to win it.”

MacKinnon scored 39 seconds into the third period to tie it 3-3. He shot into an open net from the bottom of the right circle after Makar's initial shot deflected to him off Rantanen.

“I thought the first period and OT we were the better team. They had the second and third. Then, obviously, that’s a pretty nice goal by them, kind of out of nowhere at the end,” Stars forward Matt Duchene said. “No time to feel sorry for ourselves. We’ve been in this position before, and this time we want to make sure that we split (the first two home games).”

NOTES: Nichushkin extended his postseason-opening goal streak to six games, tying Martin Havlat (2006) for the second-longest in NHL history. Pat LaFontaine scored in his first seven postseason games in 1992. ... Makar has 19 career playoff goals, passing Sandis Ozolinsh for the most by a defenseman in Colorado/Quebec Nordiques history. ... Makar (three goals, nine assists), MacKinnon (three goals, eight assists) and Rantanen (two goals, nine assists) each extended his point streak to six games. ... Suter is the oldest defenseman in Stars history to score a playoff goal (39 years, 107 days). ... The Stars are 0-5 in Game 1s under DeBoer.