In Edmonton, the Colorado Avalanche did not need a last second goal for a win.
Pavel Francouz made 27 saves and the Avs blanked the Dallas Stars, 4-0, for their second win in the seeding tourney in the Western Conference.
“I wasn’t much nervous today and that scared me because usually I’m pretty nervous, so I was a little bit afraid about that,” Francouz said. “It didn’t affect my performance, I guess. I don’t even know why, but I felt pretty comfortable today.”
“I felt pretty good, especially with how we started the game,” Francouz said. “We were dominating and had a ton of good chances, then we just kept scoring and scoring, and I felt better and better every time. The guys helped me a lot today and it was a pleasure to play behind this team.”
Cale Makar, potted a power play goal for the Avalanche.
“We’re confident when we’re playing our game, when we’re hard on the forecheck,” Makar said. “For us, just generating those offensive opportunities not only from the rush but also from winning battles in the corners, and stuff. I think as a team we really feed off that.”
Andre Burakovsky and Joonas Donskoi struck a goal and two points each in the win.
“Right now, I think there’s a raised urgency in our power play,” Colorado head coach Jared Bednar said. “The execution is better, they’re more dialed into the coaching that [assistant] Ray [Bennett] is giving them. Ray’s doing an amazing job of laying out what some of their options are, how we want it to look. That execution and that focus will help you.”
Vladislav Namestnikov also scored for Colorado.
The Avs will play the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday
“That team played very well tonight,” Dallas head coach Rick Bowness said. “They played faster than we did. They moved the puck better than we did. The chances that we had at the right time to get us back into the game, the chances were there and we didn’t capitalize.
“We need to get back to the way we played for 40 minutes against Vegas (a 5-3 loss on Monday). That’s where we need to get to. That’s our game: forecheck, structure, compete. We just need to get there and stay there on a consistent basis. Tonight, it’s tough. That’s a great hockey club and they’re fast. We had our chances to get back in the game, we didn’t capitalize.”
[WATCH: All Avalanche vs. Stars highlights]
Anton Khudobin made 36 saves in the loss for the Stars.
“I think that game showed that mentally we have to really realize that this is the playoffs, this is tough and it’s tough to win,” Dallas’ Andrew Cogliano said. “Colorado proved that tonight. When you play a team like that, they’re a highly talented team and in order for us to beat them, and I know it’s a cliché, but we have to outwork them, we have to check them and play a simple game. We weren’t able to do that tonight.
“Clearly, mentally, we aren’t ready to do that and we have to get into that mode in this last game before we head into the playoffs. We have some time. We’re going to stick together, we’re not going to point fingers and we’re not going to abandon each other. It’s a time you’ve got to rally together with the time we have, be real about where we are and be real about getting better.”
The Stars will play the St. Louis Blues on Sunday.
“Absolutely, that’s the plan moving forward,” Bowness said. “They get tomorrow off. We’ll go back to work on Friday. Hopefully we’ll have a healthy lineup for St. Louis.”
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