LeBrun: Stars vs. Avalanche, a series dripping with star power, delivers on its promise

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DALLAS — And now we get the series we were supposed to get.

Two bonafide Stanley Cup contenders taking swings at each other.

But it was oh so close to a whole other story.

“I mean, our season’s on the line if we lose the first two games here,’’ Stars head coach Peter DeBoer said after a gripping, 4-3 OT win in Game 2 Monday night, tying their series with the Colorado Avalanche. “We got away with it last year in series one against Vegas, but you’re probably not going to that well again this year and winning.

“We knew our season was on the line, and I thought we got more direct in our game, more competitive, and got rewarded for that.”

They got desperate is what they got. Led by captain Jamie Benn, who brought his big boy hockey pants on this night, the Stars came out of the dressing room to start the third period like a team whose season might end if they didn’t find another gear.

And they did indeed find it.

Evgenii Dadonov’s second effort goal tied it up midway through the third period, setting up a thrilling overtime where both teams got decent looks.

By the thinnest of margins, the Stars avoided going to Denver down 2-0 in the series. Which is sure how it looked after two periods, with Colorado the superior team at that point.

The Avs got the road split and they’re in good shape heading home but this felt like an opportunity wasted.

“Every time you lose a game that you played pretty good you lose an opportunity to take control of the series,’’ said Avs head coach Jared Bednar. “But like, they’re going to have something to say about it, too, right? So we controlled part of that game and they controlled part of it and a lot of it was played pretty even. That’s life when you’re playing a team like the Dallas Stars.’’

Thing is, the Stars hadn’t really looked like the Stars for a while. They struggled down the stretch with so little to play for, resting players and waiting for the playoffs. But let’s also be real in all this, they haven’t been the same team defensively since losing No. 1 blueliner Miro Heiskanen in late January.

DeBoer himself, when asked after the morning skate Monday about the differences from last year’s series between these two teams, pointed out the Stars had Heiskanen playing then plus shutdown wizard Chris Tanev.

That’s not the world they’re in now, the Stars head coach said. Tanev took his brilliant defensive skill set to Toronto, and Heiskanen, who skated again Monday morning, is trying to come back into the lineup before the end of this series.

But until then, it’s going to be a ferocious challenge for the Stars to hold off an Avalanche team that is so much deeper than a year ago.

By the end of the series last year, Colorado was a one-line team.

This Avs team is not that. Fourth-line goals from Jack Drury and Logan O’Connor in Game 2 Monday night proved again that this Colorado lineup is deep and stretched out.

This is a lineup for the Avs more resembling the ’22 version, which produced a Stanley Cup.

While Dallas deeply misses Heiskanen on the back end, the Stars are equally deep up front; the Jason Robertson injury stinks but they’ve got a forward group that can sustain that particular injury.

And who scored the overtime winner Monday night? Fourth-liner Colin Blackwell, inserted into the lineup by DeBoer after sitting out Game 1.

“He was a consideration for Game 1,’’ said the Stars head coach. “He’s had a great year for us, played really well. I talked to him when we didn’t play him in Game 1 and told him, ‘Be ready, you’re not gonna be out long.’

“I wanted to get him into Game 2. He’s one of those energy guys. I thought after losing Game 1, we needed a little shot of energy there. Here’s a competitive player, and I thought he was effective all night.”

In a series dripping with star power on each side, that fourth-liners rose to the occasion Monday night also showed the layers to each of these contenders.

“I think that’s why you see at the trade deadline both Colorado and us adding players,’’ said DeBoer. “I think everybody knows this is a gauntlet, and it’s a war of attrition. You need depth at every position …

“It’s funny, the best players get so much attention in the pre-scouts, when they’re on the ice, that a lot of times it’s not surprising that these games are decided by the depth guys.”

Said Benn of the Stars’ fourth line: “Can’t say enough good things. They’ve been playing some great hockey for the last while here. You could argue that they could be our best line through the bit of the struggle that we had. But they played another great game tonight, stepped up obviously, created a lot, and what a big goal by [Blackwell] there.”

Bednar has clear trust in his fourth line, which also includes Parker Kelly. It has been an effective unit all season long.

“Excellent,” Bednar said of his fourth line. “That line again was a force to be reckoned with. I thought they did a lot of good things tonight.’’

Let’s not kid ourselves: Superstar Nathan MacKinnon still played 24:53 on this night, a total beefed up in an overtime game, but O’Connor was at 17:44 and Drury at 16:22. No one is getting lost on that Avs bench.

“The pace of this game is, you need everybody,” said Bednar. “It’s too back and forth, hard fought, the intensity is high, the competitiveness in every race is high. So guys need time to recover before they go back out on the ice and do that again, right? You’re looking at the pace and physicality and disciplined hockey from both sides throughout the course of the game, there’s no let up. That means the depth is there throughout both lineups.’’

So what now? For the Avs, they need to get back to what they were doing in the first five periods of this series, and not turn the puck over like they started doing in the third period Monday night, which fed the Dallas attack.

The Stars’ best path showed up in the third period Monday night when they took more aggressive, straight-line routes to the net. Benn led the way in that fashion; the Stars’ captain was a horse. Everyone on his side followed his lead. The Dadonov goal was a great example.

“To me, they’re always a team that goes to the net-front hard,” said Bednar. “And shoot with traffic, they attack down low and back of the net and net front. That’s their M.O. and they’re really good at it. They have a group of forwards that can be strong on pucks and create their chances out of havoc. And again, some of it is on us. I think we’ve done a good job handling that area, and preventing them from getting there at times in the series, but the margin for error is so small that you turn over a puck or two and they get a little momentum, they’re going to start to feed off of it, right? … Once they get going, they’re a lot to handle.’’

But more than anything, the Stars finding a way to come back Monday night reminded us a Cup contender is alive and well despite not showing up a whole lot over the past few weeks.

“That’s what I like about this group,’’ said Benn. “There’s a lot of character in here. We’ve been through a lot as a group and stuck with it and found a way to win.”

“I think that says a lot about the character in our room,” added Blackwell. “That was a big win for us. I think if we go into Colorado down 2-0 it’s a different series.’’

Which it nearly was. Instead, get ready for the long series we figured it would be.

(Photo: Jerome Miron / Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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