*Photo from ESPN*
Dallas leads series 3-2
We're going back to mile high. Artturi Lehkonen had a goal and an assist, Cale Makar had two goals, and the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Dallas Stars with a 5-3 victory Wednesday night in Dallas.
Needing a win to keep their season alive, the Avalanche did just that and forced a game 6 in the series. The Avalanche held their first lead of the series as well, the first time they had been ahead since Miles Wood scored in OT of game one. Lehkonen, Makar, and Nathan MacKinnon each had two points.
MacKinnon said after the game that "I don’t think we’ve had a lead for one second in this series. Finally got one. Obviously, we wanted one in the first, but that’s a tough goal for them to give up with less than one second left. It was big for us. Tied it up again. Finally got a lead. It was nice to get the lead for once."
Joe Pavelski started the scoring in this one, getting the Stars on the board 9:03 into the game on his first goal of the playoffs. Lehkonen scored a power play goal in the last second of the first to tie the game 1-1. Miro Heiskanen scored on the power play in the second for Dallas while Cale Makar did the same for Colorado to make it 2-2 after 40 minutes.
Casey Middlestadt scored just 1:12 into the 3rd period, giving the Avalanche a 3-2 lead. Makar scored unassisted at the 4:28 mark of the period to make it 4-2 Avalanche on the eventual game winning goal. Logan Stankoven scored for the Stars to cut the deficit to 4-3 before MacKinnon provided an insurance goal to make it 5-3.
It was Alexandar Georgiev who started again between the pipes for the Avalanche, getting the win when it was most needed. Georgiev made 23 saves on the 26 shots the Stars offense tested him with, posting a .885 save percentage.
Georgiev said of the win that "I feel during the regular season and even this playoff we’ve been finding good ways to come back and win games when we’re down in the game. I feel confident in our group. You’ve got to take every game one shift at a time. If we play a full 60, it doesn’t matter if they score first or if we do as long as we play from the start to the end."
Back in goal for the Stars to no one's surprise was Jake Oettinger, who got handed his second loss of the series. Oettinger stopped 22 shots on the 27 he faced from the Avalanche offense, giving him a .815 save percentage.
Pavelski said of the loss that "We’re trying to close it out so we can move on, however we get it done. It’s a group that’s going to compete. However it happens, we want to get there and we want to keep advancing. It would’ve been nice, absolutely. But we didn’t get it done. So now we have to go regroup a little bit, look at a few things and go try to win a game."
Game 6 of the series is set for Friday night as the series shifts back to Denver. The Stars will look to punch their ticket to the western conference finals while the Avalanche need to win to force this series to a deciding 7th game.
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