Avalanche Game 60 Recap: Dancing With the Dallas Stars

The month of February is almost over. We are on our way to that final home stretch, with barely over 50 days left in the regular season. All 32 teams have something to play for, whether it's the playoffs, or the draft. For the Colorado Avalanche, it's important seeding in the Central Division. It's been rough for the boys in burgundy, blue, and white for the last few weeks, but the Avs are still above ground where it counts, and still have a shot at finishing first in the Central Division for the third straight year.

For this go-around, the Avs faced off against a very big foe: the Dallas Stars. This is the third meeting of the season, and the series has been fortunate for Colorado. The first two meetings were in Dallas, and they were both comeback wins for the Avs. In this meeting, it was Alexandar Georgiev vs Jake Oettinger, and it would only take 60 seconds for the first goal to go in. Logan Stankoven, who scored in the OT loss to the New York Islanders, put it in past Georgiev. However, a pair of ex-Dallas Stars would answer much, much later. Joel Kiviranta, who broke our hearts as a Dallas Star in the bubble, made us cheer when he tied the game, and the assist came from Andrew Cogliano, who was also part of that Dallas Stars bubble run in 2020. Mikko Rantanen later gave us the lead later in the period, and one of the assists came from Nathan MacKinnon, giving him 97 points so far.

The first power play went to Dallas with 31 seconds left in the first, Dallas had 1:29 left of PP time to start the second, and the rest was killed off. The game chilled for a bit, but at 7:09, Cogliano made it 3-1--his second straight game with a goal. Less than a minute later, Nathan MacKinnon put it in--top shelf--and that was point #98 for #29. The Avalanche went on the power play for the first time, and I was pulling for MacKinnon to get #99. That didn't happen, but we still scored; Artturi Lehkonen put it in from Jonathan Drouin and Mikko Rantanen. 5-1 was the score after 40 minutes, and it held the rest of the way after a quiet third period that didn't see too much action.

The Avalanche won, 5-1, over the Dallas Stars, and that clinches the season series. The Central Division is so tight; the win over the Stars ended up moving the Winnipeg Jets into first place, as the Jets won 4-2 over the St. Louis Blues. As of now, this matchup would occur during the first round of this year's playoffs, but with the Stars having home ice advantage. The Avalanche are two points behind the Jets and Stars in the Central, and we don't face either team again until April--Stars on April 7 and Jets on April 13, with both games taking place at Ball Arena. As for the points race, Nathan MacKinnon's still a good bit behind Nikita Kucherov, who picked up his 103rd point in a 6-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. There's still time, though.

Next up for the Avalanche is a trip to the Windy City to face off against the Chicago Blackhawks on Leap Day Thursday. After that, the Avs will kick off the month of March in Nashville against the Predators on Saturday, before facing off against the Blackhawks again on Monday.

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