Stars look to respond again, ‘earn some bounces’ after tough Game 6 loss

DENVER -- It wasn’t funny for the Dallas Stars, but what else could they do?

“Yeah, you just laugh, I think,” goalie Jake Oettinger said. “Can’t make it up.”

This was the winning goal in the Colorado Avalanche’s 7-4 victory in Game 6 of the Western Conference First Round at Ball Arena on Thursday, forcing a Game 7 at American Airlines Center in Dallas on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN, TVAS).

The score was tied 4-4 in the third period when Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon drove to the net and threw the puck in front. Stars center Sam Steel tried to clear the puck from the goal mouth. It hit the right shoulder of Stars forward Colin Blackwell and bounced past Oettinger’s glove into the upper-right corner of the net at 9:04.

MacKinnon called it “fluky” and “super lucky,” a “freak goal.”

Blackwell put his hands to his head in disbelief.

“You’re just like, ‘Are you serious?’” Oettinger said. “Like, I can’t believe that.’”

How do you respond to something like that?

Well, the way the Stars have responded all series.

They have played without Miro Heiskanen, their No. 1 defenseman, and forward Jason Robertson, who led them with 35 goals in the regular season, due to lower-body injuries.

After losing 5-1 in Game 1, they won two straight in overtime -- 4-3 in Game 2, 2-1 in Game 3. After losing 4-0 in Game 4, they won 6-2 in Game 5.

The Avalanche took a 2-0 lead in the first period of Game 6 with two lucky goals. Forward Valeri Nichushkin fired a puck that hit the stick of Stars defenseman Esa Lindell, hit the right skate of Stars defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin and slid past Oettinger at 6:29. Defenseman Cale Makar fanned on a shot, and the changeup floated to forward Artturi Lehkonen, who put the puck into an open net at 18:40.

“I think they’ve got better bounces than us,” Oettinger said.

But the Stars came back and took a 4-3 lead in the second thanks to the line of Mikael Granlund, Roope Hintz and Mikko Rantanen. Hintz had two goals. Granlund and Rantanen each had one.

Hintz and Rantanen each had four points, tying the NHL record for points in a playoff period, and became the first pair of teammates in NHL history to each record four points in a playoff period.

“I’m really proud of our group,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “They’ve had a lot of different obstacles over the course of the playoffs and the regular season where they could have laid down, and we haven’t. They’ve continued to battle.

“I mean, that game’s 2-0 tonight. Would have been easy just to mail it in and get ready for Game 7, and they refused to do that. That’s why I’m so disappointed by the bounces and some of the calls.”

DeBoer said the Stars had no choice but to open up the game after falling behind 2-0.

There is truth to that.

There is truth to this too, though: Colorado outshot Dallas 48-26 and led in shot attempts 87-55. This was a wide-open, up-and-down game that suited the Avalanche more than the Stars. Nichushkin tied the game 4-4 at 6:02 of the third, kicking a rebound to his stick and stuffing it in the net, setting up what came next.

When you have the puck in the offensive end, you can throw it at the net. When you throw it at the net, you can get a bounce. That’s what they mean by “creating your own luck.”

MacKinnon said the Avalanche could have had more goals, and they deserved the bounce on the winning goal. He wasn’t wrong.

“Sometimes you’ve got to earn the bounces, and the bounces went their way today,” said Rantanen, MacKinnon’s former Avalanche teammate. “We’ve got to try to earn some bounces on Saturday to come to our way.”

The Avalanche have not won a Game 7 since 2002, when they defeated the San Jose Sharks in the Conference Semifinals. MacKinnon, Makar and captain Gabriel Landeskog have never won a Game 7. MacKinnon and Landeskog are 0-4 in Game 7s. Makar is 0-3.

DeBoer is 8-0 in Game 7s, and the Stars have won their last two. But they’ve felt like the underdog in this series, and they’re going into Game 7 with that mentality. Who knows what will happen? It could come down to another bounce.

“Now we’ve got a great opportunity -- home for Game 7,” DeBoer said. “We’ve been in this situation before. No one gave us a chance to win this series, and here we are with one game at home to advance, so that’s a great situation to be in.”