In Edmonton, Alexander Radulov struck twice and the Dallas Stars grabbed a Game 1 win, 5-3, over the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night..
Anton Khudobin made 28 saves to get the win.
Tyler Seguin gave the Stars a 1-0 lead with four minutes gone of the clock in the first period.
“Any time our line scores a goal early in the game, you know they’re going,” Stars head coach Rick Bowness said. “When that line scores an early goal like that, that’s huge and you just have to let them go. We’re not going anywhere without our top players. Their top players performed tonight and so did ours.”
Jamie Benn had three assists in the victory.
“After the Calgary start (trailed 3-0 at 6:34 of the first period in Game 6 of the first round on Thursday before winning 7-3), we wanted to have a good start,” Benn said. “We know these guys are an elite hockey team. A lot of skill, some high-end players and we wanted to roll four lines early and get everyone in it, and I thought we did that well tonight.”
Nathan MacKinnon potted two goals for the Avs.
“They seemed more competitive than us. Just an off night for us, I guess,” MacKinnon said. “It’s going to be a tough series, and they have to beat us three more times, and we’ll be well prepared for Game 2.”
Gabriel Landeskog added a single marker for Colorado and two points on the night.
“They came out hard, no doubt,” Landeskog said. “Toward the end of that Calgary series, it looked like they kind of came into their own and started playing better than what they showed in round-robin. But that’s the case any time at this point of the season, the further you go, the better the teams are going to get. You have to bring your best every night, and we sure didn’t tonight.”
Blake Comeau and Roope Hintz also scored for the Stars.
“It felt good,” Seguin said. “That was all my linemates. Pretty patented goal where they’re battling in the corners and I kind of tried to find that soft area and happy it went in.”
Game 2 of the series is Monday night.
“Give them credit,” Comeau said. “They’re a really good hockey team and they pushed hard. They had some good looks, but I thought we did a good job of not bending too far.”
[WATCH: All Stars vs. Avalanche highlights]
Philipp Grubauer got the start for the Avs but left the game early in the middle frame with lower body injury; he allowed three goals and made seven saves.
“Obviously, he’s in a position there where he tweaked something and unable to continue, that’s already bad news,” Avs’ head coach Jared Bednar said. “You know, time will tell how long he’s going to be out. I have no idea at this point, but I’m not expecting him to hit the ice tomorrow or anything like that. … In the meantime, [Francouz is] going to have to get the job done.”
Pavel Francouz made 18 saves over the final 36 minutes of the game.
“Obviously, Dallas is a good team, they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t a good team,” Landeskog said. ” But a lot of what happened tonight was self-inflicted as well. We just didn’t get up to the standard we need to play at at this point of the season. We need to be a lot better, no doubt.”
Grubauer was helped off the ice while favoring his left leg.
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