Avs Ready For Quick Turnaround Against Stars

The Colorado Avalanche is quite familiar with the Dallas Stars.

The clubs played twice in the preseason last September, four times during the regular season and then faced off less than three weeks ago during the round robin of the Stanley Cup Qualifiers. Now, the Central Division rivals will play a best-of-seven series to determine who will advance to the Western Conference Finals.

"Obviously this is a team that we know pretty well from playing them in the regular season," said Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar on Friday. "Them and us, we're not changing a whole lot from when we were playing in the regular season, even though now it's playoff time. I think they had a little bit of a slow start coming into the bubble, but certainly looks like here recently, I've watched some of their last couple games, that they're firing on all cylinders again and starting to look like the team that we expect them to be."

Game 1 of Round 2 is set for Saturday at 6 p.m. MT at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, and the Avalanche will have one more day to prepare than the Stars after wrapping up its opening series in five contests against the Arizona Coyotes on Wednesday. The Stars advanced out of Round 1 after scoring seven unanswered goals in a 7-3 victory in Game 6 late Thursday night versus the Calgary Flames.

Dallas won all four games of the season series but picked up two of its victories in extra time. Though the Avalanche went 0-2-2 against the Stars in the main campaign, the club had a 4-0 shutout in the teams' qualifying game back on Aug. 5. Colorado has "home-ice advantage" for this round as the No. 2 seed, while Dallas is the No. 3 seed in this 2020 Western Conference tournament.

The Avs are expecting a much tougher matchup against the Stars than they faced in that round-robin contest and in their first-round series, where they won back-to-back 7-1 outings to eliminate the Coyotes from the postseason.

"They've gotten better as this qualifier and playoff has gone on. They battled back against Calgary, and they got some timely goals," said defenseman Erik Johnson of the Avalanche's next opponent. "They're a veteran team, some really good defensemen who log a lot of minutes and do a lot of heavy lifting for them, and some guys up front that can put the puck in the net. It's going to be, I think, probably a heavier series, probably some more physicality than what we had in the last one, so we're looking forward to it."

All of the Avs enjoyed an off day on Thursday and returned to the practice ice at Terwilliger Arena on Friday afternoon. It was Colorado's first full-team practice in 10 days.

"We had a great day of practice," Bednar said. "Quick meeting before we went on the ice, and just make sure everyone is focused to have a good day knowing tomorrow it's right back to business."

Bednar said the team learned of the day and time of Game 1 on Friday morning, but he doesn't mind the quick turnaround.

The Avs coach said there was a bit too much down time while stuck in the bubble between the round-robin games--Colorado had two days between each of those contests--and his squad was able to get what it needed recovery-wise over the last two days.

"The days between games give you plenty of time to get some rest and get prepared to play the next night," Bednar said. "We're liking the fact that we don't have too much time off between games. I'm sure Dallas is the same way. Just keep playing. That is what we're all here to do--is to play hockey games and not necessarily practice and have days off. We're looking forward to the start tomorrow."

AVS PLAYER STATUS

The Avs finished their first-round series with nearly everyone unscathed from serious injury and will enter the conference semifinals almost completely healthy.

Only two players missed games, with Joonas Donskoi sitting in Game 2 and Vladislav Namestnikov not dressing in the final three contests after getting hurt in in last Friday's outing.

Namestnikov could return to game action for Saturday's series-opening contest, as Bednar said Valeri Nichushkin was the only player not to practice on Friday. Nichushkin was given a maintenance day to allow some "bumps and bruises" extra time to heal.

Goaltender Philipp Grubauer is expected to get the nod between the pipes once again for Game 1. He went 4-0 during Round 1 and owns a 5-0-1 record, 1.49 goals-against average, .937 save percentage and a shutout this postseason.

OFF DAY FUN

The Avalanche had a well-deserved off day on Thursday to rest up and relax after finishing its Round 1 set in five games.

Most of the players and coaches went golfing at nearby Blackhawk Golf Club, and while they did leave the Edmonton hub-city campus, they still remained in a "bubble." The NHL organized the event and the Avs only interacted with each other.

"It was a beautiful course, just get out with some greenery and be able to swing the sticks a little bit was awesome." Bednar said. "We did get rained out later on in the day, but it was just nice to sort of get into a different environment and relax and have the day off and not have to worry about hockey."

On the links, some of the players fared better than others.