The Dallas Stars will play the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Second Round.
Dallas eliminated the defending champion Vegas Golden Knights with a 2-1 win in Game 7 of the first round on Sunday. Colorado eliminated the Winnipeg Jets with a 6-3 win in Game 5 of that series on April 30.
"I’m honestly not even thinking about it. A lot of times, in those situations, it can be an advantage rolling right into the beginning of another series. We’ll hope that is the case," Stars coach Pete DeBoer said when asked about playing a rested Avalanche team. "It’s another big test, a huge test. There are some similarities to Vegas, and the one thing about them is we’re very familiar with them. It’s not like we need a lot of work on prescout. We’re very familiar with each other. We’ll enjoy this one in the short term and then start thinking about that.”
The Stars, who are the No. 1 seed from the Central Division, will have home-ice advantage against the Avalanche, the No. 3 seed from the Central. Colorado went 3-1-0 against Dallas during the regular season, which included two wins in Dallas (6-3 on Nov. 18, 5-4 in overtime on Jan. 4) and one in Denver (5-1 on Feb. 27). The Stars won the last meeting of the regular season on the roard, 7-4 on April 7.
Game 1 will be in Dallas on Tuesday (9:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN360, SN, TVAS).
“I think it’s going to be a totally different style of hockey," Stars goalie Jake Oettinger said. "We felt like we played well against them during the regular season. Obviously, that last game of the year we played them, we felt like we played a great game against them. We should feel confident in what we just did. We showed that we can play that way or the more up-tempo game I’m guessing we’ll be getting from them. A couple of adjustments and let’s roll.”
Wyatt Johnston led Dallas in the first round with seven points (four goals, three assists). Jason Robertson (three goals, two assists) and Miro Heiskanen (one goal, four assists) each had five points.
Oettinger started all seven games, going 4-3 with a 1.95 goals-against average and .925 save percentage.
Against the Avalanche, the Stars were led by Tyler Seguin, who scored six goals. Mason Marchment and Matt Duchene each had a goal and four assists, and Jamie Benn and Johnston each had a goal and three assists.
Oettinger was 1-2-0 with a 4.74 GAA and .863 GAA. Scott Wedgewood allowed five goals on 34 shots in the 5-4 overtime loss on Jan. 4.
Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen each led the Avalanche in the first round with two goals and seven assists. Artturi Lehkonen had eight points (five goals, three assists) and Valeri Nichushkin scored a team-leading seven goals.
Alexandar Georgiev started all five games, going 4-1 with a 3.03 GAA and .900 save percentage.
MacKinnon led the Avalanche against the Stars in the regular season with seven points (three goals, four assists). Makar had six assists, and Rantanen (three goals, two assists) and Devon Toews (five assists) each had five points.
Georgiev started all four games and posted a 3.51 GAA and .892 save percentage.
Colorado and Dallas have played five times in the postseason. The Stars have won three of those series, most recently in seven games in the 2020 second round.
NHL.com independent correspondent Taylor Baird contributed to this report.
