Preseason Recap: Dallas’s Stars outshine Colorado’s rookies

Colorado falls to 0-2 in the preseason.

For the second time in less than a week, the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars played each other for another preseason matchup. Dallas would end up winning this game by a final score of 4-2. Let’s break down all of the action from tonight.

First Period

There are three constants in life; death, taxes, and Matt Duchene scoring on the Avs. And that’s exactly who scored first in this game. This play initially started in Colorado’s offensive zone. During this play, Colorado ended up with four players deep in the zone trying to play the puck, leaving one defenseman alone at the top of the zone to defend, and leading to a three-on-one. Overall, it was just a bad defensive breakdown that led to that goal.

Second Period

Good things take time, but in this case, not a lot of time as Ivan Ivan tied the game for the Avs at the 3:08 mark in the second period. Colorado would finally get a power play, and this play would start with Sam Malinski controlling the puck at the top of the zone and eventually feeding it down to Jere Innala, who would then give it off to Nikolai Kovalanko. Ivan ended up creeping up to the net on the backdoor, and it rarely gets much easier than that.

Dallas would respond not long after that, however, as Tyler Seguin would give the Stars a 2-1 lead. This play would start with a faceoff in Colorado’s defensive zone, which Dallas would win. Thomas Harley would then take the puck and cycle around the back of the net, drawing a lot of attention from the Avs’ players. Seguin would creep toward the front of the net, and no Avalanche player would pick him up until it was already too late.

The Avalanche would quickly answer back after that, as Parker Kelly would score his first goal of the preseason off of a great feed from Kovalanko. Kovalenko would take the puck into the Stars offensive zone, and subsequently draw two Dallas defenders with him. He was able to keep control of the puck and found Kelly as he came flying into the zone and to the front of the Dallas net as no one picked him up.

Third Period

Kevin Mandolese would come in halfway through the second period for the rest of the game and get some reps after Alexandar Georgiev got some time, similar to what we saw the other night. Duchene would continue his habit of scoring on Colorado, as he gave the Stars a 3-2 lead not even a minute into the period. Seguin would set up Duchene for the goal with a great pass, and Duchene would tuck the puck past Mandolese.

The Stars would score an empty net goal as well to bring us to the final score of 4-2.

Takeaway

Identically to the last preseason game, this game does not mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Especially given the fact that Dallas iced a pretty NHL regulars-heavy roster tonight compared to Colorado’s. That being said, there were some arguably meaningful takeaways when it comes to guys actually making Colorado’s roster.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway of the night, Nikolai Kovalenko had himself one heck of a night. He ended the game with two assists on the night, and boy were they ever pretty-looking plays. The skill was certainly there with Kovalanko, to begin with, but in both of these games so far, you’ve seen that hockey intelligence come through quite a bit, demonstrated by the pass he made to set up Parker Kelly on the second goal. It’ll be incredibly interesting to see how Kovalenko looks with Colorado’s NHL regulars, assuming he gets some time with them in a game later in the preseason.

Upcoming

Colorado gets their first look at the Utah Hockey Club this year on Sunday, September 29. Puck drop is at 5:00 p.m. MT.