Dallas Stars vs. Colorado Avalanche: 2024 Stanley Cup playoff series preview and pick

Credit: © Ron Chenoy

Dallas Stars: 1st in Central Division, 113 points, def. VGK in Round 1 (4-3)

Colorado Avalanche: 3rd in Central Division, 107 points, def. WPG in Round 1 (4-1)

Schedule (ET)

Date	Game	Time
Tuesday, May 7	1. Colorado at Dallas	9:30 p.m. ET
Thursday, May 9	2. Colorado at Dallas	9:30 p.m. ET
Saturday, May 11	3. Dallas at Colorado	TBD
Monday, May 13	4. Dallas at Colorado	TBD
Wednesday, May 15	5. Colorado at Dallas*	TBD
Friday, May 17	6. Dallas at Colorado*	TBD
Sunday, May 19	7. Colorado at Dallas*	TBD

The Skinny

While the last time these two teams met in the playoffs was only four years ago, a lot has changed since that 2020 second round series in the bubble. At that time, the Stars were an older team likely on their last legs, while the Avalanche were a young team looking to take that next step and contend for Stanley Cups. Now, the Stars have found a youthful resurgence despite the core of that 2020 run still hanging around thanks to some excellent drafting and the Avs are now the more-experienced group thanks to a 2022 Stanley Cup win.

The Stars were already looking like an excellent team after their run to the Western Conference Final last season, but thanks to some savvy offseason moves, they looked even better and deeper, which was why they finished the season in first place in the West. Their reward? A first-round matchup with the Vegas Golden Knights, the team that was both defending the Stanley Cup and had eliminated them in that Western Conference Final last year. Vegas gave them some early troubles, even taking the first two games in Dallas, but the Stars’ depth came to shine on route to a win in seven games to oust the defending champs. Still, it doesn’t get any easier.

The Avs had a first round matchup with the Winnipeg Jets that also felt like a toss-up, as their inconsistencies all season made an otherwise electric group seem vulnerable, especially in net. They looked like they’d have another premature playoff exit after a 7-6 loss in Game 1, but their offense continued to click and Alexandar Georgiev turned his series around to keep the goals against to a minimum. The end result was not even close, as they exposed Winnipeg’s flaws and took advantage of Jets head coach Rick Bowness’ refusal to adjust, and they took the next four games. But will the Stars be as stubborn as the Jets or will their depth give the Avs fits?

Head to Head

Dallas: 1-2-1
Colorado: 3-1-0

The Stars and Avalanche played four games against each other, and they were spread quite evenly throughout the season with each one being about six to eight weeks apart, so it’s not like one team caught the other with a couple close together games during a good or bad streak. Colorado took the first three games of the year by scores of 6-3, 5-4 (in overtime) and 5-1, but you could argue that Dallas took the most important one, beating the Avs 7-4 in the only game between the two after the trade deadline. Along with that, the Stars also had a 55.13% 5v5 score-adjusted expected goal share in the season series. What does all this tell us? The Stars are probably the better team going into this series, but the Avalanche have the better talent that can help them win games.

Top Five Scorers

Dallas

Wyatt Johnston, 7 points
Jason Robertson, 5 points
Miro Heiskanen, 5 points
Evgenii Dadonov/Jamie Benn/Tyler Seguin, 3 points

Colorado

Nathan MacKinnon, 9 points
Mikko Rantanen, 9 points
Cale Makar, 9 points
Artturi Lehkonen, 8 points
Valeri Nichushkin, 7 points

X-Factor

There are quite a few options to pick going into this series. With the offense being top-end star talent vs. overwhelming depth, you could argue that the Avalanche’s stars will be the difference maker. But then with the Stars having the advantage in net on paper, you could make the case that Jake Oettinger‘s play in net will decide the series.

Instead, I’m going to look to behind the bench for my selection. When I previewed the Jets and Avs series in Round 1, I mentioned that the biggest difference maker in a series between two very similar teams would be coaching and if Bowness would be capable of not being stubborn for just a few games to adjust when Jared Bednar inevitably did the same in the series. That proved to be one of the biggest reasons Colorado won the series and was especially the reason why they won in five games.

That concern is one I have with Pete DeBoer as well going into this series. In defense of the Stars’ head coach, he has actually been quite good at making some adjustments this season, particularly by finally deploying Thomas Harley in a top pair role and sheltering Ryan Suter or by injecting Logan Stankoven into the team late in the season and in the playoffs. But he’s shown signs of stubbornness in the past, especially in the Stars’ Conference Final exit last season against Vegas, and if he shows signs of it again in this series, Colorado has already shown us that they will take advantage of it.

Offense

The Stars had one of the best offenses in the league this year, but it was by committee instead of superstar talent. They ranked third in goals for per game in the regular season (3.59) and eighth in 5v5 expected goals for per 60 minutes (2.81), but that came without a single player scoring at a point-per-game pace, with Robertson’s 80 points in 82 games being the closest to that. But they also had eight players hit the 20-goal mark, and 10 players with at least 47 points, so the lack of a true superstar doesn’t make them easier to shut down.

The goals haven’t exactly followed them to the playoffs just yet as they finished the first round tied for 11th in goals for per game (2.29), but the 5v5 expected goal generation (2.97) has actually seen some improvement and was second in the league. That should probably scare some opponents knowing they still have another gear to reach after how good they looked against a talented Vegas squad.

Johnston has emerged as one of the team’s top players after scoring 32 goals in his sophomore season, and that play continued into the playoffs with four goals and seven points in the series. He was the only Dallas player to score at a point-per-game pace in the first round, and if he can continue that as the rest of the team catches up offensively, Dallas will be tough to stop.

Robertson and Heiskanen were also excellent in the series against Vegas, but it still feels like they have another level to hit. Beyond that, everyone was good but not great. Whether it’s their veteran players like Seguin, Benn, Dadonov, Matt Duchene and Mason Marchment, or their younger talent like Stankoven and Harley, they have plenty of players that can help you win a series, so much to the point that you just need one line to get hot at one time to make it work.

That’s without mentioning Roope Hintz, who’s one of their top forwards when he’s on his game and normally a strong playoff performer but has seen his struggles in the past couple months. If he finds his game again, look out. Joe Pavelski is another forward who has had better days, but as someone who’s going to be 40 this summer, it’s likely that Father Time has finally claimed him and we may be looking at his last chance at a Stanley Cup.

Of course, if there’s one team that has the front-end talent to outscore the Stars’ depth, it’s the Avalanche. After a regular season that saw them score the most goals per game (3.68), that’s gotten even better early on in the playoffs (5.6), and is even a whole 1.2 goals per game more than the Edmonton Oilers in second. A 37.5% success rate on the power play (somehow only tied for the third best in the league) certainly helps, but they still had 4.36 5v5 goals per 60 minutes as well, so they certainly aren’t relying on it.

Colorado is also the best in the league in 5v5 expected goals for per 60 in these playoffs (3.31), a big improvement on their good-but-not-great regular season totals (11th-best at 2.72 per 60), so this isn’t completely unsustainable, although a league-best shooting percentage (11.44%) suggests that we’ll see these numbers dip a little bit.

Right now that success has come from Colorado’s star players. While it hasn’t felt like the likes of MacKinnon, Rantanen and Makar have truly taken over a game, all three lead the team with an identical stat line of two goals, seven assists and nine points. Along with the big names, the Avs have five other players clicking at above a point-per-game pace in Lehkonen, Nichushkin, Casey Mittelstadt, Josh Manson and Devon Toews, with Lehkonen and Nichushkin having the most impressive series by scoring a goal in every game.

The Avs’ depth scoring beyond that drops off a little bit, although only Jack Johnson, Brandon Duhaime and Sean Walker played all five games and didn’t register at least a point. This is also without Jonathan Drouin, who missed all of the first round after he was cut by a skate in Game 82 of the regular season. Going into their series against the Jets, depth scoring was a big concern considering how deep Winnipeg’s offense was. Colorado’s offense was up to the task, but can that continue in this round against an even deeper Stars team?

Defense

While the Stars offense struggled a bit in the first round, their defense in that series was just as good as the regular season, if not better. They went from 2.83 goals against per game to 2.29 and from 2.26 5v5 expected goals against per 60 to 1.99, and the fact that this comes against the Golden Knights is even more impressive.

A lot of that is due to finally having the depth on the back end to play players in roles they’re comfortable with. At this time last year, they were playing whatever remains of Suter on their top pair because they didn’t think they had any better options. This year, he’s in a sheltered third-pair role because Harley has emerged as an excellent partner for Heiskanen, while Chris Tanev has been as perfect of a deadline add as we thought he’d be and has stabilized their second pair with Esa Lindell. All in all, it creates a blueline that has all the necessary ingredients and can compete with most teams.

I mentioned that Robertson and Hintz struggled a bit more offensively this year, but some of that was also do to DeBoer shifting their roles a bit and turning them into shutdown forwards this year. It paid dividends as both thrived in that role and even finished in the top 10 in defensive GAR in the regular season. They got a lot of minutes against Vegas’ top six in the first round, and while they didn’t generate a lot of offense, they shutout the Stone line and held the Eichel line to two goals when they were on the ice, so that left the door open for the rest of the team to outscore the Golden Knights’ depth.

But what makes their forward depth even better is that they’re just as good defensively as they are offensively. Just about every player is either good in their own end, or they’re paired up with someone who is, and it paid off in the first round as no player finished below 50% in 5v5 expected goal share. In fact, outside of Robertson and Hintz in their tough matchups, every player had above 55%, and half of them were above 60%.

The Avs defense was slightly above the pack in 2023-24 during the regular season in goals against per game (tied for 16th at 3.07), 5v5 goals against per 60 (19th at 2.55) and 5v5 expected goals against per 60 (12th at 2.54). That trend carried over into their first-round series against the Jets in all three regards, seeing their goals against per game slightly improve (11th at an even 3), take a drop in 5v5 goals against per 60 (13th at 2.89) and a slighter decline in 5v5 expected goals against per 60 (11th at 2.61), but the former two categories see some improvement once you remove that 7-6 Game 1 loss out of the equation.

The weird thing about Colorado’s defense in relation to their offense is that very few players on the team were good in both regards in that first round series. Of the five players to finish below 50% in 5v5 expected goal share, four of them were their point-per-game players in MacKinnon, Makar, Rantanen and Nichushkin, with the other one being Samuel Girard.

That at least means that the Avs will get some level of positive contribution from any player they put on the ice, whether that be goals from their superstar or defense from their depth players. But, it should be a bit of a concern that your big guns can’t carry play, especially when you see players who are known for their defensive play like Makar and Nichushkin in that group. Still, you’d expect those two players to rebound going forward, and when four of your blueliners and your bottom three lines can be rolled out and be reliable defensively, you know you’re in a good spot.

Goaltending

A lot of people weren’t sure what to expect from Oettinger in the postseason, as his career so far has been all over the place. After three strong seasons to start his career and a stellar 2022 postseason performance against the Calgary Flames, Oettinger seemed like one of the league’s best goaltenders. But come the 2023 playoffs, the Stars seemed to make it as far as they did in spite of Oettinger, and then he had a season to forget in 2023-24 as Dallas’ only glaring weak spot.

But, Oettinger figured out his game through the final month of the season and has carried that momentum into the second round. Sure, he hasn’t been lights out like 2022, but he was good enough to get the job done behind this deep squad with a .924 save percentage and a 2.33 goals saved above expected, and he made the timely saves when they needed him to. They’ll require that against an Avs team that made the likely Vezina winner look like an ECHL call-up, especially when this is arguably the only matchup where they have the advantage on paper. They don’t exactly have a strong backup option either, as even though Scott Wedgewood was fine during the season, I wouldn’t count on him to backstop a team to a Stanley Cup.

Georgiev also went into the postseason with plenty of concerns. While he has been solid enough through two seasons with the Avalanche, the workload that he’s been given through his first two seasons has eventually taken a toll on him, both in his struggles in the 2023 playoffs and through most of this season. Once he allowed seven goals in Game 1 against the Jets, alarms were already sounding in Colorado.

But Georgiev really locked it down beyond that game. If you eliminate Game 1 from his numbers, he has the third-best save percentage (.933%), the fourth-best delta-fenwick save percentage (+2.03) and the fourth-best goals saved above expected (3.49) among goalies with at least one start so far in the playoffs. It’s an underrated reason why the Avs got through the Jets so quickly after that sloppy first game, as even with Colorado’s defense playing a bit poorly, Georgiev gave their offense plenty of breathing room to work with. Should he struggle or get hurt, Justus Annunen was solid in his limited playing time in the regular season and has the potential to keep the momentum going, but it’s tough to see them move away from Georgiev with how he’s been so far this postseason.

Injuries

After playing the first two games of the series, Marchment missed the rest of the first round with an undisclosed injury, and while there’s no long-term concerns, it’s still not quite known when he’ll be back in the lineup. They’ve also been without Jani Hakanpaa for the last month and a half, although he could potentially return at some point during this run. Other than those two, the Stars seem to be in good health going into the second round.

The biggest uncertainty for the Avs in the injury department is Drouin, who missed all of the first round after he was cut by a skate. Initial reports only specified that he’d be missing the first round, but with the Avs advancing, it seems more likely that he’ll be returning late in the second round or early in the third if Colorado is still playing hockey. Joel Kiviranta is currently day-to-day as well but will probably be available by the time this series starts.

The only other unknown factor for Colorado is the slight possibility that Gabriel Landeskog may return. It’s something that’s been teased on the condition of a deep playoff run, so now that we’re getting deeper, that possibility grows.

Intangibles

The Stars are in such an interesting spot in their contention window, because it’s really only just starting with the likes of Robertson, Hintz, Heiskanen, Johnston, Oettinger, Harley and Stankoven all still very young, and they’ve already had plenty of playoff experience over the past few seasons. This also means that Dallas will still have plenty of opportunities at a Stanley Cup should this season not work out, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a missed opportunity with the depth that they have this year. Along with that, this may be Pavelski’s last attempt at a Cup, and some of the older veterans like Benn, Duchene, Tanev and Suter don’t have too many more kicks at the can.

The Avalanche already have their Stanley Cup win from 2022, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have any motivation to keep winning. Besides the fact that MacKinnon wouldn’t let the team slack off if they wanted to, this is a talented group with plenty of years left in terms of their age, looking to go from being a championship-winning team to a dynasty with a couple more wins. That future success isn’t guaranteed either, as their cap space is looking to get a bit tighter soon. With MacKinnon’s extension kicked in and Rantanen’s contract coming to an end after next season, it’s going to get tougher to build around this group in the coming years. Besides that, Zach Parise has already confirmed that he’s retiring after this season, so this is going to be his last chance at a Stanley Cup.

Speaking of Parise, another underrated matchup within this series is the reunion of Parise and Suter, the two mammoth free agent signings from 2012 that were bought out and have been causing the Minnesota Wild cap problems for three years now.

Series Prediction

On paper, this is a really close matchup. Both teams have excellent offenses even though they get that through different methods. Both teams are capable of being dominant defensively. And while Oettinger has the track record of being the better of the two goaltenders in this series, Georgiev has been excellent so far this postseason. Once it’s all said and done, the series is going to be decided by how the teams adjust to each other and take advantage of any opportunities the other gives them, or by whichever one of these close matchups slips up even momentarily.

All that said, I think the Stars’ depth gives them the ability to create different problems for the Avs at different times, and that also gives them multiple options to solve whatever Colorado throws at them. That just feels like the kind of slight edge needed to win a series this close, but it wouldn’t surprise me if MacKinnon and co. take over the series and make it look easy either.

Stars in seven games.

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