Stars proved they can hang with Avalanche with OT win

While intriguing playoff races and battles for seeding are taking places across the NHL, none of them quite compare to clash of titans at the top of the Central Division. The Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars, who also sit first and second in the NHL’s leaguewide standings, are in a race to take first place in the division and not only avoid the dangerous Minnesota Wild in the first round, but grab home-ice advantage for a potential second-round matchup between the two powerhouses.

On Wednesday, we got the penultimate meeting between the rivals this regular season, with Dallas claiming a 2-1 overtime victory over Colorado, despite getting outshot 34-18 and generating far fewer expected goals, according to Natural Stat Trick. Regardless, the NHL is about results, and the Stars’ win brought them to within two points of the Avalanche in the standings and showed their mettle as a likely playoff opponent for Colorado down the road.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed the importance of Dallas’ win over Colorado on Wednesday.

Tyler Yaremchuk: That was a hell of a hockey game last night, and showed again that Dallas, despite the shot clock, despite the expected goals, all of that stuff, they are capable of being right there with this Colorado team.

Carter Hutton: I think this is a big win for Dallas in the sense of just putting doubt in Colorado’s head again. You listen to Nathan MacKinnon last year after that playoff series loss being like “They didn’t even have (Miro) Heiskanen, we couldn’t beat them at their best.” I remember that quote because it was something that felt like he was so defeated. Now you’re going in there and you’re playing without (Mikko) Rantanen, you’re playing without Roope Hintz, and they still find a way to win that hockey game for the Dallas Stars. This is with Jason Robertson, who didn’t play in that playoff series last year, which is another thing to be noted. He never came back until the Winnipeg series. I think for Rantanen and Hintz, that’s a motivation to come back and play through Minnesota and get a chance to go there.

You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Thursday’s episode here…