Dallas, TX
5 things to know about the Stars-Avalanche series in Round 2 of Stanley Cup playoffs
The Dallas Stars have reached the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the second consecutive year after defeating the Vegas Golden Knights in seven games in their first-round matchup.
Dallas advances to face the Colorado Avalanche, a Central Division rival, in the second round. Colorado cruised to a 4-1 first-round victory over the Winnipeg Jets.
The Stars, as the Western Conference regular season champions, have home-ice advantage, meaning they’ll host Games 1 and 2 as well as Games 5 and 7 (if necessary) at American Airlines Center.
The series will start Tuesday, with Game 1 scheduled to begin at 8:30 p.m. Game 2 will start at 8:30 p.m. Thursday.
Here are five things to know about the Stars’ second-round matchup:
A pivotal playoff foe
The Stars have never reached the Stanley Cup Final without going through the Colorado Avalanche. In five postseason meetings, the Stars hold the 3-2 advantage with wins in the 1998-99 season, 1999-2000 season and 2019-20 season.
Their most recent meeting was in the second round of the 2020 Stanley Cup playoff bubble when the Stars won in seven games.
Dallas’ three wins all required a Game 7. Colorado’s two wins were decided in only five games in 2003-04 and 2005-06.
Record doesn’t tell whole story
As division opponents, the Stars and Avalanche met four times in the regular season and Colorado won the series 3-1.
Colorado won the first three meetings — two of which were blowouts — while Dallas came away with arguably its best win of the season on April 7 by a 7-4 margin on the road. That win was key in clinching both the Central Division and Western Conference titles.
The circumstances in which the Stars faced the Avalanche this season were not easy. Dallas’ two road games came on the second night of a back-to-back, and the second home game Jan. 4 was the night Miro Heiskanen collided with Scott Wedgewood and was injured in the third period, leading Dallas to blow a two-goal lead with 10 minutes to play in a 5-4 overtime loss.
The Stars won’t have to worry about back-to-backs in the playoffs. Colorado’s Ball Arena is a difficult environment in which to play, but the Stars will start the series at home as the higher seed.
Avalanche started playoffs hot
The Avalanche lead the NHL this postseason with a whopping 5.6 goals per game. While most other teams saw their goal average decrease in the playoffs, Colorado’s soared. The Avalanche also managed to do so against Winnipeg — one of the best defensive teams in the league with Vezina front-runner Connor Hellebuyck in net.
They are led by forward Nathan MacKinnon, who finished second in the race for the Art Ross Trophy with 140 points in the regular season. He already has nine postseason points (two goals, seven assists) in just five games.
Two other Avalanche players also have nine points — forward Mikko Rantanen and defenseman Cale Makar, a finalist for this year’s Norris Trophy.
On the flip side, the Avalanche allowed 3.0 goals per game, which is the highest among teams advancing to the second round.
Colorado enters series fresh
The Colorado-Winnipeg series was projected to be the toughest first-round matchup in the league with many assuming it would require seven games.
However, Colorado closed it out in five, ending Winnipeg’s season on Tuesday.
With the Stars-Avalanche series starting Tuesday, Colorado will have a full week off the ice by the time the series gets going. That’s a rare break in the postseason and it allows the players to be well-rested entering the Dallas series.
It may not be the worst situation if the Stars have to jump into another series. After having nearly a week off following their last regular season game, the Stars dropped two straight to Vegas at home to start the playoffs.
The quick turnaround could allow Dallas to build on its four-game win streak and Colorado to cool off from its hot start offensively.
Familiar faces on both sides
A handful of Stars and Avalanche players will reunite with their former teams.
For the Stars, Matt Duchene will return to where he began his NHL career. The first-year Dallas forward spent 8.5 seasons in Colorado from 2009-18. It was the longest stop of his career before playing for Ottawa, Columbia, Nashville and now Dallas.
On Colorado’s side, Joel Kiviranta, Valeri Nichushkin and Andrew Cogliano will all return to Dallas.
Kiviranta left most recently, as he was a part of Dallas’ Western Conference finals roster last season. He played four total years in Dallas. Nichushkin started his career with the Stars, spending four various years with the team from 2013-19. Cogliano was in Dallas for three seasons from 2018-21.
Find more Stars coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
Dallas, TX
Timberwolves lose to Dallas in Game 3 of Western Conference finals
DALLAS – Even at the lowest point of the Timberwolves season, Anthony Edwards was remaining upbeat.
A season ago, when the Wolves fell behind the Denver Nuggets 3-0 in a playoff series, Edwards sat at his locker, head in his hands and didn’t say a word. He left without speaking to the media.
Now, a year later, his team faces another 3-0 deficit. But Edwards was trying to radiate positivity in a moment some teammates could have been sulking following a 116-107 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday night in the Western Conference finals series.
To the slumping Nickeil Alexander-Walker, two lockers over from Edwards, Edwards said: “One shot at a time, ‘Kiel, it’ll fall. Just trust it.”
This came after Alexander-Walker, who can be hard on himself, had his head in his hands à la Edwards a season ago. Alexander-Walker, after a 1-for-4 shooting night, was rocking back and forth in his chair when media first entered the locker room.
Then Edwards was holding court with Mike Conley and Kyle Anderson, saying all the Wolves need is one game where everyone is clicking and they will be right back on track.
“We’re here now fellas, what are we gonna do?” Edwards said.
Then Edwards spotted the struggling Karl-Anthony Towns on the other side of the room. He wanted to hear a positive response out of Towns, who had another off night in this series with 14 points on 5-for-18 shooting, including 0-for-8 on three-pointers.
“We here now, Karl. What are we gonna do?” Edwards said.
“Make history,” Towns responded.
That they will have to do, as no NBA team has ever come back from a 3-0 hole the Wolves are in after another awful stretch of late-game offense did them in against Dallas. NBA teams trailing 3-0 are 0-154 at winning series.
“We ain’t got nothing else to do. We can’t do nothing but be positive at this point,” Edwards said in his postgame news conference. “We can’t be negative. Just try to get it one win at a time.”
The Wolves had a 104-102 lead after Anderson hit a shot-clock beating jumper with five minutes to play, but the Wolves didn’t have another field goal until Edwards hit a meaningless layup with 15.3 seconds left. The Mavericks outscored them 14-3 as Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic again dominated a Wolves defense that has had no answer for the Dallas duo.
Doncic and Irving both scored 33 points.
Double-team them and make them give it up? Dallas’ supporting cast like Derrick Jones Jr. (11 points) and P.J. Washington (16 points) were hitting shots early as the Mavericks shot 50% from three-point range compared to the Wolves’ 30%.
Don’t double them and guard them straight up? Then they were hitting shots, as when Doncic hit a shot over Jaden McDaniels as he was falling down in the fourth quarter and Irving made a contested layup late in the shot clock against Edwards as part of Dallas’ closing push. The Mavericks backcourt stars were a combined 22-for-40.
“It’s been tough for us to try to navigate that,” coach Chris Finch said. “We’ve been picking our poison here a little bit.”
The problem for the Wolves is that each poison they pick has been lethal.
Edwards had 26 points on 11-for-24 shooting, and he came through with a 10-point third quarter that brought the Wolves back from an eight-point halftime deficit. He found room to attack the rim after Mavericks rookie Dereck Lively II exited because of a strained neck when his head inadvertently met Towns’ knee after he fell going for a rebound in the second quarter. But the Wolves didn’t attack as much late, and Edwards and Towns were a combined 16-for-42.
“You play into their hands when you hold the ball and you dribble out the clock and are fighting against the shot clock,” said point guard Conley, who had 16 points. “That was the issue we had a little bit tonight, where we were looking down 10, 11 seconds left on the shot clock and at that point you have to force it instead of being in an action early, playing a little bit more.”
Edwards was playing that way in the third quarter after Lively’s injury freed up space at the rim. Edwards took off for a thunderous dunk as part of a stretch when he scored six consecutive points, and the Wolves pulled ahead for the first time at 79-77 since they were ahead 5-3.
But the Wolves could never build and maintain a lead, as Irving and Doncic seemed to respond each time the Wolves got ahead. A backbreaking moment came when Washington hit a wide-open corner three to put Dallas ahead 107-104 with 3:38 left when the Wolves had what Finch called a “mental breakdown” on defense.
“We have belief against anyone. But we are our worst enemy, every time,” said center Rudy Gobert, who had nine points and six rebounds. “And it’s a great thing, but it can also be a thing that’s not great when we beat ourselves.”
The memo for the Wolves to Towns was to play more under control on Sunday after he struggled the first two games. But nothing he did worked. His reliable three-point shot has been non-existent.
“I feel every shot’s good,” Towns said. “I’ve shot a lot of basketballs in my life. I’m the first one in the gym. I definitely am working. I’m shooting. Every time I’m shooting, it feels good. I’m just having these very unfortunate bounces all the time. It’s annoying.”
Also annoying to the Wolves was the officiating, especially in the third quarter, when Dallas shot 17 free throws. That was as many as the Wolves shot in the game. (Dallas finished with 31.) The Wolves felt the Mavericks were committing the same fouls to them that they were to Dallas.
“It’s about consistency on both ends,” Conley said. “That’s all we ask for at the end of the day.”
BOXSCORE: Dallas 116, Wolves 107
That’s also what the Wolves are asking of themselves.
About the only constant, win or lose, is the positivity emanating from Edwards, who is convinced the Wolves still have a great game in them against a Dallas team that has so far figured them out.
Edwards was asked how he can keep from having a sky-is-falling attitude. It’s who he has always been, he said.
“I never seen the sky falling,” Edwards said. “I don’t know, I’m always positive, always happy. I’ve been through the worst, so the sky is never falling for me.”
Dallas, TX
Dallas teen who inspired hundreds to register to become blood stem cell donors dies
DALLAS – Pike Petersen, a North Texas teen who had been fighting an aggressive form of leukemia, had died.
FOX 4 has followed Petersen and his family as they looked for a bone marrow donor and when he received a transplant from his older brother in March.
His story inspired more than a thousand people in North Texas to register to become blood stem cell donors.
Petersen’s mother says he died after complications with one of his biopsies.
Pike was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia when he was 13 years old after feeling bad at a summer camp.
Services are scheduled for Thursday at Park Cities Baptist Church.
Dallas, TX
Heika’s Take: Stars ride Oettinger’s dazzling performance to Game 2 victory | Dallas Stars
Oettinger finished with 28 saves, 15 of which came in the first period, and that may have helped change this series. The Oilers were able to outlast the Stars in double overtime in Game 1, and then dominated the first period Saturday to send a message that there was a possibility they were just going to take the series over. But Oettinger refused to let that happen. While the puck largely stayed in the Stars’ end of the ice, Dallas mustered just four shots on net against Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner. That created quite a bit of nervousness in the home crowd, and maybe even in the dressing room.
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