Avalanche and Stars Have Been Building For This Series

The Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars fell just short of reaching the Western Conference Finals a season ago, but a spot in the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs' final four has already been reserved for one of the teams. Which Central Division club will take that place will be decided in the best-of-seven Round 2 series that begins this evening.

It is going to be the second time this postseason that Colorado and Dallas have faced off after the Avs won 4-0 on Aug. 5 during a round-robin game to determine seeding. Dallas won all four contests during the regular-season series (Avalanche went 0-2-2) after they also faced each other in two preseason outings last September.

The teams know each other well, and there will likely not be any surprises for head coach Jared Bednar and his Colorado squad in this series.

"We're pretty confident what we're going to see from Dallas, and I'm sure they're pretty confident on what they're going to see from us," Bednar said following today's optional morning skate. "It's just going to come down to execution and players deciding the games and making plays. I feel good about our preparation coming into this."

The Avalanche lost 3-2 to the San Jose Sharks in Game 7 of last year's Second Round, while the Stars fell 2-1 in double overtime to the eventual Stanley Cup-champion St. Louis Blues in its seventh game.

Colorado has been building toward a long playoff run since finishing 22-56-4 in 2016-17 and is in the postseason for a third consecutive year--the first time the franchise has done so since a run of 11 straight from 1995-2006. The last time the Avs made it to the second round in back-to-back campaigns was in 2004 and 2006 when they beat the Stars in the first round each time (there was no season played in 2004-05).

"There were times last year (in the regular season) where we weren't great and battled some consistency issues and then picked it up at the right time of the year. This year we wanted to be better when it comes to that and push for the division or the conference," Bednar said. "We cleaned up some of our consistency troubles and became a better team because of it. We're getting more focused and hungry as the year goes on. I'm pretty happy with it here. We consider ourselves a real good team with a real good chance to win."

Both Colorado and Dallas played last year's Game 7s on the road, but the 2020 conference semifinals will be played in the neutral site of Rogers Place in the hub city of Edmonton, Alberta, due to concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Avs will be designated as the home team for Games 1-2 and 5 and 7, if necessary, after finishing the Stanley Cup Qualifiers round robin as the No. 2 seed in the conference. The Stars are the third seed in the West.

This second-round series will likely be far different than the ones that the divisional foes just played. The Avs' offense exploded in their five-game Round 1 against a tough, defensive-minded Coyotes team, while the Stars had to stage several comebacks in their series to defeat the Calgary Flames in six games, including erasing a 3-0 deficit in the first period in the last contest.

The Stars have stars up front, but it was their secondary scoring that did much of work against the Flames. Much like Colorado, Dallas added veterans last offseason with playoff experience in Joe Pavelski and Corey Perry, and them and the squad's others depth players certainly factored into the first-round win.

"Dallas is certainly playing real well now, especially in the latter part of the Calgary series," Bednar said. "They're playing with passion and a lot of fire and they found a way to win three in a row to close that series out."

There will be a new a Stanley Cup champion this year after the Blues were eliminated in six games by the Vancouver Canucks on Friday night, opening the door for the eight remaining NHL teams to earn the title. The Avalanche and Stars have as good of chance as any to take the crown, but they'll have to get through each other first.