{"id":464500,"date":"2026-10-13T06:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T06:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/464500\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T06:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T06:22:07","slug":"game-day-guide-avalanche-vs-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/464500\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Day Guide: Avalanche vs Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

First Shift \ud83c\udfd2<\/p>\n

The Stars finished third in the NHL last season\u2026and second in the Central Division.<\/p>\n

Thanks to a historic season from the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas was pushed to a first-round matchup with the Minnesota Wild and lost in six games. Ironically enough, Colorado had to face the Stars in the first round the year before and also was eliminated. That is life in the Central, and both teams will get a huge reminder when they play at Dallas on Tuesday and at Denver on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Coach Glen Gulutzan said he thinks the timing is good for his 2-2-1 team coming off a flat performance in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly think where our team is at, it\u2019s perfect,\u201d Gulutzan said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t played our best hockey, but nothing brings out the best in you like a great opponent, and we\u2019re going to face them twice. I think this comes at a great time to get us into our best game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dallas started the season with two losses and then played very well in wins over San Jose and Buffalo. However, a 2-1 shootout loss to the Penguins was a dose of reality that needs to be checked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure (Colorado) didn\u2019t like their last game and we haven\u2019t liked many of our games, so the game comes at maybe a great time for both of us,\u201d Gulutzan said.<\/p>\n

Dallas went 2-1-1 against the Avalanche last season with three games going past regulation. Still, Colorado finished with 121 points (55-16-11) to 112 for the Stars (50-20-12). It was a great race, and it helped create even more friction in the rivalry.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time they come here or we go there, it feels like a playoff game,\u201d said Jake Oettinger<\/a>, who is 7-3-3 in his career against Colorado with a 3.05 GAA and .911 save percentage. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a good way to see where we\u2019re at. We always want to win the division and they didn\u2019t let us last year. They\u2019re there every year, so we\u2019ll have to go through them if we want to win the division.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mikko Rantanen<\/a> has played three regular season games against his old team, but seven more in the playoffs. He ranks fourth all-time in Colorado franchise history in goals scored (287), fifth in points (681) and eighth in games played (619). He still knows half the roster.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve played against them over 10 times now, but it\u2019s still good. There are a lot of friends on the team, so it\u2019s always fun,\u201d he said, adding the importance in the standings revs things up. \u201cIt\u2019s a big two games. In a hard division like we have, these games are really important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First Shift \ud83c\udfd2 The Stars finished third in the NHL last season\u2026and second in the Central Division. Thanks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-464500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}