TLDR: Through 5 games, one of these Central teams can't stop scoring and the other can't stop keeping the puck out. Colorado brings the league's loudest early offense to Dallas on Tuesday, October 13, and Jake Oettinger has been giving up almost nothing.
Colorado (3-2-0) brings a 26-goal start led by Nathan MacKinnon into Dallas, where the Stars (2-2-1) have leaned on Jake Oettinger's back-to-back shutouts while scoring only 1 goal in each of their last 2 losses. The game likely hinges on whether Colorado's early surges survive the middle period, which is where Toronto beat them, and whether a Dallas team short on centers, with Duchene out and Faksa day-to-day, can give Oettinger enough offense. No odds have been posted yet.
+Oettinger shut out San Jose and Buffalo back-to-back
+Allowed 8 goals in 5 games
−1 goal in each of the last 2 losses
−Duchene on LTIR, Faksa now day-to-day
−Shut out 4-0 at home by St. Louis
Colorado has put up 26 goals in its first 5 games, including 8 on the Kings and 6 on the Blues at home before a 7-3 win in Calgary. Nathan MacKinnon is driving it. He opened Saturday's game against Toronto with 2 goals in the 1st period, his second set up by Cale Makar and Martin Necas. After that it fell apart. The Leafs won the 2nd period 3-1 and the 3rd 2-0, and a team that had scored 14 goals in 2 home games couldn't get anything going after the 1st intermission. The Avalanche have lost their last game and are 3-2 in their last 5. That makes 2 losses in 3 games, both to teams that took the lead and kept playing with it.
Dallas is the reverse. The Stars have scored 11 goals in 5 games and allowed 8. They opened with a 4-0 home loss to St. Louis and a 2-1 loss in Nashville, then turned it around behind Oettinger, who shut out San Jose 5-0 and Buffalo 4-0 in back-to-back starts. Per NHL.com, he started 4 of Dallas' first 5 games, Pittsburgh included. The lineup has the scoring names: Wyatt Johnston, Mikko Rantanen, Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz. Getting those names to score is the problem. They managed 1 goal in each of the 2 losses that bookend the shutouts, the 2-1 loss in Pittsburgh included.
So the matchup is easy to describe. Colorado's top line has buried teams early, and Dallas has the goalie who's been the hardest to beat this month. The 2nd period is where it gets interesting, since that's exactly where Toronto turned the Avs over. If Dallas can stay level through 40 minutes, Colorado has already shown it can lose a game it led. If MacKinnon gets loose early in front of Oettinger, a Stars team scoring 2 goals a game in its losses doesn't have much to chase with.
Depth is thin on both sides. Colorado is still without Logan O'Connor, who missed the Calgary game after the sudden passing of his father, Myles, and is on injured reserve with a lower-body injury. Georgii Merkulov is on non-roster IR. Dallas has a longer list: Matt Duchene is on long-term IR with a lower-body injury, retroactive to Sept. 29, Joel Kiviranta is out, and Radek Faksa went day-to-day after the Pittsburgh game. NHL.com had Faksa centering the 4th line there. With Duchene already gone, losing Faksa would push the Stars further down their center depth.
Puck drop is 7:30 PM CT at American Airlines Center. Neither team has a game in between, so both get 2 full days to sort out what went wrong on Saturday: Colorado's 2nd period and Dallas' scoring. It's early October, but a Central matchup between the team that scores the most and the goalie who's been impossible to beat is worth staying up for.
Colorado Avalanche at Dallas Stars — MacKinnon's Avalanche Visit Oettinger's Stars in Dallas on Tuesday | Polymarket Odds · Barstool Bush
