Colorado Avalanche battle Dallas Stars to their third straight shootout—can Nathan MacKinnon and the Avs crack Jake Oettinger’s code in a potential playoff showdown?
Chris Micieli and Zach Pearson break down the Avalanche’s 2-1 shootout loss, praising Colorado’s relentless forecheck, tight defense, and marked improvement in puck battles against the Stars. With MacKinnon and Cale Makar leading dynamic power plays, and Scott Wedgwood stepping up in net, the conversation highlights why fans should feel optimistic despite the result. The episode covers the Avalanche’s evolving depth lines—including Ivan Ivan and Bardakov—handling Dallas’s physical play, and analyzing the impact of key officiating moments. Can playing to this structure finally tilt the season series in Colorado’s favor as the playoff race heats up?
Get comprehensive analysis on lineup changes, player roles, and what’s next for Jared Bednar’s squad in their pursuit to stay atop the Central Division.
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10 Comments
Sucky, lucky, fluky, just an overall bummer of a goal by Dallas. Sucked because with how good the Avs played, wish that goal hadn't gone in. But we will see Dallas again in April, hopefully with both teams having a full roster! Wonder if we will finally get that regulation win lol
Moral victories!
I expect the Avs to really start playing with confidence after that game. 15-0 for rest of season. Let's go boys.
Speaking of physical play, sure was fun watching Drury get manhandled by Malkin.
Same sh*t, different year. They need to take better/more dangerous shots else they will continue to make other team’s goalies look better. Simply outplaying your opponent doesn’t guarantee a series win in the playoffs…that’s hockey!
Gretzky said it best. Quit passing and start shooting. Seems like half of all passes get intercepted. I am getting that sinking feeling that Dallas has better goal tending than we do. I am scared for another Av’s 1-2 round exit from the playoffs!
Not sure what Dallas fans are crying about — how about that missed high stick to Malinski's face?
As disappointing as it is to not come out with the win, I will never complain about that kind of effort. Smothering defense and lots of shots. 9 times out of 10 you win that game. The other time, you get goalied. It's just a pity that the points are so dear right now. Keep playing like this and they'll go on a run.
There have been several games that frustrated me lately, but I couldn't even be mad about this game. They played very well, especially defensively, which was definitely an improvement over the Pittsburgh game. On to the next!
Haven't even clicked to watch the video yet and you got me commenting on the title of the video lol.
Agree to Disagree that the Avs "Deserved" a better fate, This is the NHL you're supposed to earn every inch.
Deserved should not be in an NHL teams vocabulary, especially when only scoring 1 goal in the game.
scoring 1 goal in the game regardless of how dominating of an effort you make on the ice, is the opposite of deserving to win.
The team that scores the most deserves to win the most. Winning in puck possession or corsi or shots on goal is nice but it's irrelevant to the scoreboard.
They're not doing what it takes to score goals in tight games and we're not going to sit here and pretend that they don't know how to score in tight games, they're just not executing appropriately to get it done.
Too many passes, Too much trying to be Fancy/Cute, Not enough players going to the hard area's to get goals, Not enough players activating plays where more people can easily be on the same page, as an example when was the last time An Avalanche player made a slap pass off the goalie? Is Landeskog really the only one who can execute the slap pass off the goalie? Why can every other NHL team successfully execute back door passes yet the Avs can never get a guy in front long enough to try to bank a puck off of them and into the net. Avs seem obsessed with making every goal a goal of the year candidate, how about we just score regardless of how pretty the passing play is.