DENVER — The only passengers Saturday night were the thousands of Avalanche fans buckled into Ball Arena seats for the ride Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen were taking them on.
MacKinnon scored twice, inching closer to his first 100-point season, and Rantanen registered four points to lead the Avs to a 5-2 win in their last regular-season meeting with the Stars.
With 10:51 remaining after Dallas had seemingly closed the gap to 3-2, Avalanche coach Jared Bednar challenged for goalie interference, a rule that has mystified the Avs throughout the year. It was a high-stakes roll of the dice: Losing would mean a Dallas power play in a one-goal game. But Bednar won, and the lead stuck until empty-netters for Valeri Nichushkin and Rantanen.
The Avalanche (45-24-6) desperately needed a win to keep its division title hopes alive on the heels of a regulation loss to first-place Minnesota on Wednesday. Entering the night, the Avs trailed Dallas by two points and Minnesota by three. MacKinnon and company delivered, never trailing in an impressive bounce-back days after Bednar called out “passengers” on the team for poor effort early in the Minnesota game.
The Stars arrived in Denver late Friday night for the second game of a back-to-back, making the matchup more alluring for an Avalanche roster that had something to prove in the first period.
Bednar never questioned MacKinnon’s effort, but the center was rewarded for his anyway. Nearing the nine-minute mark, he chased down a loose puck that was wandering toward the blue line, extending his stick to keep Colorado’s offensive zone time alive. MacKinnon turned and flung the puck into the corner, where Rantanen chased it down in traffic and snaked a brilliant pass back through the slot.
The Stars had forgotten about MacKinnon. There he was at the backdoor for a clean one-timer.
MacKinnon has 34 goals and 97 points with seven games remaining. Rantanen is up to 92 points and 49 goals after a four-point, one-goal night.
Their first goal was as close to a work of art as they have created together this season. The second was sheer opportunism and puck luck. Leading 2-1 with a power play late in the second, J.T. Compher won a faceoff, and Rantanen tapped it back to MacKinnon. His shot redirected off a Dallas stick, and the puck fluttered past Jake Oettinger with 11 seconds left in the period.
It was a strenuous night for the Avalanche’s penalty kill, but it killed three of four Dallas power plays. Two of the penalties were against Compher, eliminating a crucial penalty killer and faceoff taker from the ice. But nothing has stopped Colorado from excelling in that area — it has killed 86.9% of penalties (66 of 76) in the last 25 games.
One of those penalty killers, Logan O’Connor, played a crucial role in multiple moments. He scored one of the most impressive goals of his career by taking on star defenseman Miro Heiskanen one-on-one and navigating around him in the offensive zone. Then in the third period, O’Connor was on the receiving end of a shove from Ryan Suter that carried O’Connor into Alexandar Georgiev’s crease and prompted Bednar’s risky challenge.
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