{"id":546431,"date":"2026-03-19T09:07:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/546431\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T09:07:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:07:23","slug":"dallas-stars-tighten-race-for-nhls-top-spot-in-shootout-win-over-colorado-avalanche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/546431\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Stars tighten race for NHL\u2019s top spot in shootout win over Colorado Avalanche"},"content":{"rendered":"

DENVER (AP) \u2014 Jake Oettinger<\/a> made 33 saves through overtime, Wyatt Johnston<\/a> scored the shootout winner and the Dallas Stars<\/a> beat the Colorado Avalanche<\/a> 2-1 on Wednesday night to tighten the race for first place in the division, conference and league standings.<\/p>\n

The Stars (43-15-10, 96 points) pulled within two points of the Avalanche (44-13-10, 98 points), who lead the NHL atop the Western Conference. It\u2019s the closest any team has been to Colorado since Dec. 10.<\/p>\n

Johnston had the lone goal in the shootout while Oettinger stopped all three of Colorado\u2019s shots, including Nathan MacKinnon<\/a> to seal the win. It\u2019s the third straight shootout this season between the Central Division rivals.<\/p>\n

Jason Robertson<\/a> also scored for the Stars, who bounced back from a 6-3 loss to Utah on Monday. It ended their streak of gaining a point in a franchise record-tying 15 straight games (14-0-1).<\/p>\n

Oettinger improved to 12-0-1 over his last 13 games. <\/p>\n

Colorado dropped to 1-3-1 over its last five games, including a 7-2 loss to Pittsburgh on Monday. Scott Wedgewood<\/a> made 17 saves against the Stars after being pulled in the first period against the Penguins.<\/p>\n

Cale Makar<\/a> scored his 20th goal of the season on a power play to give Colorado a 1-0 lead in the first period. Robertson tied it on a rebound in the second.<\/p>\n

Both teams are banged up, but approached this game with a playoff intensity. The Avalanche are missing several forwards, including captain Gabriel Landeskog<\/a> (lower body). Dallas was without Mikko Rantanen<\/a> (lower body) and center Roope Hintz<\/a> (lower body).<\/p>\n

These teams have been evenly matched all season. Dallas knocked off Colorado 5-4 in a shootout at Ball Arena on Oct. 11, while Colorado won 5-4 at Dallas on March 6. The teams meet again on April 4.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Stars: At Minnesota on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Avalanche: Open a four-game trip Friday night at Chicago.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/p>\n

Pat Graham<\/a>, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (AP) \u2014 Jake Oettinger made 33 saves through overtime, Wyatt Johnston scored the shootout winner and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-546431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}