DALLAS — Jamie Benn needs to “feel” you, as Nuggets coach Michael Malone likes to say. Right between the ears.

If the NHL won’t send a message to Benn, the Dallas Stars’ goon in green, then the Avalanche must. Starting with Game 3 Saturday night at Ball Arena.

Legal hit? More like calculated assault. At worst, the Dallas captain should’ve seen five minutes in the sin bin for his cheap shot of Avs defender Devon Toews some 2:43 into the second period of Game 2.

Benn launched. He left his feet. Toews’ head snapped like a crash test dummy. Officials declared it a shoulder-on-shoulder crime and suggested we all move on. To paraphrase my best pal Deion Sanders, that’s some bull junk, right there.

For one, even if the Stars winger was aiming for Toews’ shoulder, at least one angle showed him connecting directly with No. 7’s neck. Which, last I checked, is connected to and immediately south of the head.

“I mean, does he catch a piece of his shoulder? Yeah, I guess you could argue that,” Avs coach Jared Bednar, whose team returns to Denver after a road split at American Airlines Center, replied when I asked about the collision. “But the target is high and it’s at his head, and he makes contact with the head. And I’ve seen, many times, guys get called for the head shot and penalty with a lot less than that. But I guess they didn’t think so.”

Two, Benn knew exactly what he was doing. The Stars knew what he was doing. Dallas coach Pete DeBoer, whose Vegas teams delighted in pushing the Avs around in the postseason, knew darn well.

“Benner has been outstanding in this playoff. I thought against Vegas he did and he did (it) smart,” the Stars boss said late Thursday night. “He did it at the right times and he did it clean. But his presence physically is having an impact for us in these playoffs in a real positive way.’’

Kareem Jackson, my man, you chose the wrong sport. DeBoer woulda loved you.

In the NFL, Benn’s shot is an ejection, a fine, a suspension and a chat with the safety cops.

In the NHL, it’s a “real positive” presence, a strategic wrinkle in a no-holds-barred, merciless bracket.

The refs decided the hit was at Toews’ shoulder blade and not a head shot. Some slo-mo angles showed otherwise, especially as the D-man pinged off another Dallas player like a rag dol. By the letter of the law, it looked (makes air quotes) “clean.”

But barely legal is still barely.

“It is what it is,” Bednar said. “You’ve got to play through it.”

You’ve got to respond. After that hit, Gabe Landeskog would’ve found a convenient, strategic moment in the action to kindly re-arrange Benn’s face.

Once a bully knows they can get away with murder in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, there’s only way to stop a killing spree.

Someone’s gotta pick up the Captain’s spine. Someone’s gotta let Benn know that this won’t stand. And neither will he.

Someone’s gotta pick up Landy’s steel. Landy’s soul.

It’s not in Nathan MacKinnon’s game, bless him. It’s not in Cale Makar’s DNA, although a reactive shove after Toews got clocked landed him in an awkward headlock for a few seconds.

“Hopefully there was no intent into the head,” Avs forward Andrew Cogliano said of the Benn ambush.

Then, instead of walking it back, Cogs walked it forward.

“Maybe there was, obviously, a little bit to the head,” he added. “But, yeah, I don’t know.”

He knew. Everybody did.

“It’s a physical game this time of year,” Bednar said, “but I just can’t understand how that was not a penalty. Even if it isn’t a five (minute major).”

Join the club. Fortunately, Toews returned to the ice, but Benn needs a break. And a lesson. If the league won’t do it, somebody in burgundy and blue needs to apply a little elbow grease.

Better yet, the whole elbow.

Want more Avalanche news? Sign up for the Avalanche Insider to get all our NHL analysis.

DALLAS — Alexandar Georgiev has earned a lot of deserved praise for his mental toughness and resilience after a tough Game 1 to start the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Josh Manson knows that process of rebounding and redeeming himself as well. Manson made a pair of high-profile mistakes for the Avalanche in Game 1 against Winnipeg that led to Jets goals. Flash forward to Game 1 of this series against the Dallas Stars, and Manson made an incredible goal-saving play that turned out to be a huge moment in a 4-3 comeback victory.

“I mean, obviously after the first game in Winnipeg, it was tough. I was pretty down,” Manson said ahead of Game 2 here at American Airlines Center. “So I feel better now. The team winning too makes things easier.”

Dallas forged a 3-0 lead in the first period of Game 1. The Stars nearly made it 4-0 in the final minute. Jamie Benn cut to the net from the right corner with the puck, skated across the front of the crease and waited out Georgiev before sliding the puck past him.

Manson was there behind his goaltender. His touch of the puck popped it into the air, and then his second swatted it out of the air and out of danger.

“Once I saw him kind of get underneath, I figured he was going to try and take it wide. The only place that maybe he was gonna be able to beat him was to slide it back across, so I just kind of came up to the goal line just in case,” Manson said.

“I watched the video and I think it was going to miss the net anyway – if anything, maybe at the post. I was there just in case. I got lucky that I didn’t hit it in the net and hit it in the other direction.”

Maybe it would have gone wide, but had Benn’s shot hit the post there was still a chance it would have banked in off Georgiev or another Stars player would have had the opportunity to pounce. It was a huge play that loomed even larger as the Avalanche mounted a comeback over the final two periods before winning in overtime.

It’s a fun juxtaposition narrative: Manson goes from Game 1 goat in Winnipeg to Game 1 hero in Dallas. But the truth is Manson bounced back well before this. He had a great series against the Jets.

“We really liked his series,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “He was an impactful player on the defending side, the physicality he brings, and as you’ve seen throughout the season, he’s been making a lot of offensive plays, too.”

Colorado added Manson just ahead of the 2022 trade deadline in large part to give this talented defense corps another defense-first physical presence. But Manson has proven to be more than that, particularly this season.

He had some strong offensive years in his younger days with Anaheim, but his 2023-24 campaign (eight goals, 25 points) was his best in six years.

“I think I’m kind of a byproduct of the team for myself,” Manson said. “I’m not a guy that goes out there and just creates offense by himself. My game will thrive a bit more as the team finds success. That’s kind of how I like to look at myself.”

He noted that playing with so many high-end scorers can lead to more points for a player like him. But Manson is a defense-first player with underrated offensive skills. That makes him a great fit next to Samuel Girard, an offense-first player with underrated defensive acumen.

Together, they’re the second pairing on arguably the best defense corps in the NHL. While Cale Makar and Devon Toews deservedly get loads of credit as two of the best defensemen in the world, the Girard-Manson combo has thrived.

Bednar admitted that those two playing so well together made it easier to move Bo Byram in a trade that returned Casey Mittelstadt (along with a corresponding move to land Sean Walker as a Byram replacement).

Manson made a habit of collecting the puck at the right point and making a move to get around his defender this season.

He was second during the regular season among the team’s defensemen behind Makar with 86 scoring chances — more than Toews and Girard — and tops with 18 high-danger chances, per Natural Stat Trick. Manson has proven to be more than just a guy who’s going to let it rip from the point.

“I don’t know if I do that a lot,” Manson said. “I think it’s dependent on the game and even in situations like that, so much of it is created from guys like (Andrew Cogliano) controlling the cycle, forcing wingers to come down and beating them with that pass.

“… Our forwards are giving us time at the point to make plays and to have that confidence to do things because they’re making plays.”

Want more Avalanche news? Sign up for the Avalanche Insider to get all our NHL analysis.

Former Oregon football quarterback Bo Nix will wear jersey No. 10 for the Denver Broncos.

Fellow Bronco quarterback Zach Wilson did have the No. 10 jersey for Denver but switched to No. 4. Wilson, the No. 2 overall selection in the 2021 draft who wore No. 2 during his three years as quarterback for the New York Jets.

Coming off arguably the greatest season ever by a Duck quarterback, Nix was drafted No. 12 overall in the 2024 NFL Draft to Denver. The Broncos rookie mini camp begins May 10th.

Nix has worn No. 10 all his life. He wore No. 10 at Pinson Valley (Alabama) High School and No. 10 at both Auburn and Oregon. It is also a family number, his dad Pat Nix wore No. 10 as Auburn’s starting quarterback in the mid-1990s.

The Heisman Trophy finalist is also the most experienced quarterback prospect in the 2024 draft. His 61 career starts broke the NCAA record for most all-time by a FBS quarterback. The 23-year-old also broke the NCAA single-season record for completion percentage in 2023 at 77.45, completing a whopping 364 of 470 passes. 

Nix received a pro comparison to former Dallas Cowboys star Tony Romo from NFL.com. Another comparison Nix has often received is to retired New Orleans Saints star Drew Brees, which he has previously said he’d gladly accept.

READ MORE: Oregon Football Dan Lanning Sets Record Straight About Alabama Job

READ MORE: Oregon Football 2024 Schedule: Toughest Stretch Climaxes vs. Ohio State

READ MORE: Snoop Dogg Changing Future Of College Football Bowl Games?