DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Martin Necas broke a scoreless tie midway through the third period, Nathan MacKinnon added an empty-netter and the NHL-leading Colorado Avalanche took a big step toward home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs with a 2-0 victory over the Dallas Stars on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Scott Wedgewood made 17 saves against his former team for his third shutout of the season in the first meeting of these Central Division rivals not to go to a shootout. Dallas won two of those three.<\/p>\n
The regulation win gave the Avalanche an eight-point edge over the Stars, who have five games remaining. Colorado has seven games to go.<\/p>\n
The Stars won each of the postseason meetings with the Avs the past two seasons, and a second-round showdown could be looming this spring.<\/p>\n
Dallas is headed toward an opening-round match with third-place Minnesota, which pulled within four points of the Stars with a 4-1 victory over Ottawa and has an extra game remaining.<\/p>\n
While Wedgewood has a good chance to start in net for the Avalanche, the Stars went with Casey DeSmith, the backup to Jake Oettinger, in the final regular-season meeting. DeSmith made 20 stops.<\/p>\n
Colorado was without star defenseman Cale Makar for a second straight game due to an upper-body injury, while fellow blueliner Brent Burns became the second player in NHL history to play in 1,000 consecutive games.<\/p>\n
Necas found a seam behind the Dallas defense and tipped in a perfect pass from Artturi Lehkonen for his 36th goal 10:39 into the third. MacKinnon’s NHL-leading 51st came in the final minute after Wedgewood withstood a frantic rush moments earlier.<\/p>\n
Stars forward Arttu Hyry had what appeared to be a wide-open look at a tying goal in the slot, but misfired as the puck fluttered over the net.<\/p>\n
Avalanche: St. Louis visits Sunday in the first of consecutive meetings. The rematch is Tuesday at the Blues.<\/p>\n
Stars: Face Calgary at home Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Martin Necas broke a scoreless tie midway through the third period, Nathan MacKinnon added an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[283773,64,63,286765,105597,59632,286766,240559,68195,38159,575,146000,146002,145996,286767,145998,286768,269751,183876,85],"class_list":["post-585882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-artturi-lehkonen","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-avalanche-stars-score","tag-brent-burns","tag-cale-makar","tag-casey-desmith","tag-jake-oettinger","tag-martin-necas","tag-nathan-mackinnon","tag-nhl","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32550-ap-online-hockey-game-stories","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40777-ap-colorado-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-scott-wedgewood","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}