Avalanche score 6 straight, rally past Stars for 3rd win in row

DALLAS -- The Colorado Avalanche rallied with six straight goals for a 6-3 win against the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center on Saturday.

Valeri Nichushkin tied it 3-3 at 4:19 of the third period on a tap-in from the slot.

Mikko Rantanen gave the Avalanche a 4-3 lead at 14:32 when his shot deflected off Dallas forward Evgenii Dadonov, and 11 seconds later, Andrew Cogliano made it 5-3, sweeping the puck into the net at 14:43 as it sat on the goal line.

“It was a close game all night long, in my opinion,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “I know the scoring kind of wasn’t [good] for them, great for us, but I thought it was a well-played hockey game.”

Cale Makar had three assists, and Alexandar Georgiev made 25 saves for the Avalanche (11-5-0), who have won three in a row.

Tyler Seguin had two goals, and Mason Marchment had two assists for the Stars (11-4-1). Jake Oettinger made 32 saves and allowed more than three goals for the first time this season.

“Something I never would have predicted,” Seguin said of failing to protect the lead. “It’s not us. I don’t recall the last time this happened to us where we’ve been up three and then give up the game like that. We’re happy it happened now, where it’s not a playoff game or it’s not late in the season. It’s a great learning tool for us to study and learn from.”

Seguin gave Dallas a 1-0 lead at 10:33 of the first period when Marchment found him on the back door from below the goal line.

Joe Pavelski made it 2-0 on the power play at 14:21 on a one-timer from the slot off a pass by Jason Robertson.

“Just goes to show you how fine of a line it is when you’re going good and when it turns the either way,” Pavelski said. “It’s a lesson early on that we can learn from. No lead is really safe. Have to keep putting teams away, keep doing it the right way. It’s alright if we’ve got to learn it right now. Good teams, if you give them a little space and give them a little confidence, they get moving, and you see what they can do.”

Seguin extended the lead to 3-0 at 2:12 of the second period on a rebound from the bottom of the right face-off circle.

“I think tonight, we knew we were playing well and we still had that belief that we could win,” Makar said. “It was a very lively bench, very lively game, and it’s a lot of fun when the guys are playing like that. When we’re controlling the pace of the game, that’s the way we like to play. Credit to a lot of forwards tonight, I feel like they did a really good job.”

Miles Wood cut it to 3-1 at 13:27 on a breakaway, and Ryan Johansen made it 3-2 at 17:09 on a tipped shot from the slot on the power play.

Ross Colton scored into an empty net with 30 seconds left for the 6-3 final.

“I feel better coming out of this game because of how we played for long stretches of the game against a really good team,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “I thought we really, really controlled the play for long periods of time. We’ve got to learn to handle those momentum swings better, learn to play with the lead better. Those are all the learning things there. Learn to push back in the third there instead of sag. We definitely showed that we can play with the Colorado Avalanche, that’s a good thing. We’ve just got things we need to clean up.”

NOTES: The Avalanche rallied from a three-goal deficit to win in regulation on the road for the first time since Jan. 21, 2004, when they defeated the Florida Panthers 6-5. ... Makar has three assists in back-to-back games and extended his point streak to six games. He required the fewest games among defensemen in NHL history (254) to reach 200 career assists. … Duchene extended his point streak to five games. ... Seguin scored his 40th game-opening goal since he joined the Stars in 2013. The only player with as many over that span for Dallas is Jamie Benn (51). … The Stars lost in regulation when scoring the first goal for the first time this season (6-1-1).