Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon broke a tie midway through the third period when Dallas scored an own goal, and the Avalanche beat the Stars 7-4 in Denver on Thursday to force Game 7 in their Western Conference quarterfinal series.
Valeri Nichushkin had two goals while MacKinnon and Cale Makar had a goal and two assists each for Colorado. Martin Necas logged a goal and an assist, and Artturi Lehkonen and Josh Manson also scored. Brock Nelson and Gabriel Landeskog each logged two assists.
Mackenzie Blackwood had 22 saves for the Avalanche, who will play Game 7 at Dallas on Saturday.
“That’s it; this is over. We played this game to get to a Game 7,” MacKinnon said. “No point in thinking about it anymore. I think we can learn from how we played in Game 5 vs. Game 6 and try to bring those things to Game 7.”
Jake Oettinger finished with 41 saves for the Stars. Roope Hintz had two goals and two assists, Mikko Rantanen had a goal and three assists and Mikael Granlund also scored.
Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said, “We’ve got a great opportunity. Home for Game 7. We’ve been in this situation before. No one gave us a chance to win this series and here we are, one game at home to advance.”
Colorado trailed 4-3 before Nichushkin tied the game by knocking home the rebound of Landeskog’s shot at 6:02 of the third period.
Three minutes later, MacKinnon carried the puck down the left boards and slid a backhander to the front of the net. Dallas’ Sam Steel tried to clear the puck to the boards, but it bounced off teammate Colin Blackwell’s right shoulder and fluttered by Oettinger at 9:04.
“You just laugh. You can’t make it up,” Oettinger said. “(Blackwell) isn’t trying to knock it into our net. I’m sure crazier goals have gone in over my career, so laugh it off.”
Oettinger went off for an extra skater with 2:31 left, and Manson and Makar scored empty-net goals in the final 1:16.
Colorado took a 2-0 lead into the first intermission after goals by Nichushkin at 6:29 and Lehkonen at 18:40.
Dallas scored all four goals in the second period.
Hintz made it 2-1 on a power play at 1:18 of the second, and Granlund tied it when he roofed the puck over Blackwood at 3:41.
Necas gave Colorado the lead again when he tipped in a pass from Makar at 4:34 of the middle period, but Hintz tied it again when he beat Blackwood with a shot to the far post at 7:51.
Rantanen gave the Stars their first lead with a wrister from the slot at 18:35 of the second. Rantanen tallied four points in the period, assisting on the three other goals.
“We were executing off the rush, a couple of good plays by everybody on the line and finishing when we got a scoring chance,” he said. “Those periods happen pretty rarely, but you try to do it as often as you can.”
Stars defenseman Lian Bichel appeared to lose an edge as he battled Jack Drury and slid hard into the boards 2:18 into the second period. He was down on the ice for several minutes before getting up and skating slowly to the Dallas bench. Bichel didn’t play again in the second period but took six shifts in the third.
–Field Level Media
