2024 Playoff Preview: Into the weeds with the Stars vs. Avalanche

Buckle up (again).

Round 2.

Dallas vs. Colorado in whatever everyone predicts will be a trackmeet. In my preview of the Vegas series, I picked Dallas to win in 6. I was close — well, despite being very very far after the first two games. But in the end I chose Dallas because I felt like as good as Vegas was at doing the little things, those little things (passing, and transition play) didn’t add up to big things (shot attempts and forecheck offense).

For the most part, I would say the series went as predicted. Jake Oettinger wasn’t always perfect, but he was stout. The defense, for me, was far and away the centerpiece of Dallas’ success. The top four was phenomenal. Some were better than others, namely Chris Tanev, but given the amount of icetime they collectively logged, I didn’t think there was a weak link among them, even if Miro Heiskanen looked more mortal than usual (although given his minutes, that’s understandable).

Dallas’ forwards might have been the weakest link, but I think it’s worth giving Vegas a lot of credit in that regard. Versus Colorado, there’s gonna be zero excuse for players like Roope Hintz and Matt Duchene. (And Joe Pavelski for that matter.) However, this is a series that they should be tailor-made for players like Hintz and Duchene. These are the players that need to renew Dallas’ faith in them. Not, you know, a three-minute a night depth defender.

There are a lot of ways this matchup favors Dallas, but I also think it’s way trickier than Vegas. Vegas was elite, but predictable. Colorado is not necessarily elite, IMO, but they’re more dangerous. Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar can jailbreak any given play, even moreso than Jack Eichel. That unpredictability will either work in their favor, or work in Dallas’. This series doesn’t feel like a halfway one. Either somebody gets destroyed, or every game ends 5-4.

Note: Like with the Vegas series, we’ll talk in-depth about the Stars, then the Avalanche, and for the paid subscribers — dig a few layers deeper i.e. rush offense vs. rush defense (etc) along with a ‘Players to Watch’ section. Unlike last time, however, I will give you my verdict before the paid portion.

The Stars: At a Glance

I won’t cover the Stars as much as I did last time, except to note a few things following the Vegas series. I feel like this info largely holds true. It’s one of the reasons why I figured Dallas might struggle to score. It’s not just that Vegas is good defensively. It’s that their few weaknesses — defending the pass — is something Dallas isn’t particularly good at despite everything else they do so efficiently. And despite their ability to finish off the rush, they don’t generate a ton of rush chances ergo expect some regression.

Pretty much the same holds true here. Dallas is really good at identifying a team’s release points, and preventing chances, but they can be exploited in the neutral zone, allowing too many entries with possession. We saw this with Vegas, who was one of the better passing teams in the league. Colorado? Even better.

We’ll get to them in a bit, but for now I think the difference in this series will be Dallas’ depth versus Colorado’s. The Stars have the edge, and throughout the year, that was the story for Colorado: lack of depth. However, they went for it at the trade deadline, adding solid depth forwards like Brandon Duhaime, Yakov Trenin, and a piece that has become a part of their top six in Zach Parise. If Dallas has designs of winning, they’re not gonna need to be more than just Wyatt Johnston, Logan Stankoven, and the rare Radek Faksa cameo.

In terms of each team’s recipe for goals, Colorado is what you expect: shooting + shot volume + shot quality. Save percentage is an afterthought.

Dallas doesn’t grade out as well, and while you could argue that they had the tougher opponent, it’s not like Colorado had some sort of cakewalk. No, I don’t think Rick Bowness’ philosophy did Winnipeg any favors, and they were overrated defensively, but they were still GOOD defensively, with a Vezina-caliber goaltender. That the Avalanche just rolled right the hell over them anyways is a hell of a performance. These teams are in their prime.

This is gonna be nuts.

The Avalanche: At a Glance

So what’s most noticeable?

First the good:

• Blistering offense that’s sustainable in every way: they can sequence (lots of shots that come from passes), they can capitalize on those sequences (especially on the rush, where they rate #1*), and they know how to initiate them (transition play).

Now the bad:

• That’s about it.

The thing about Colorado’s defense is that it’s a very specialized defense. It’s easy to underrate them because they’re not a bunch of walking Easter Island heads like in Vegas, but their strength comes from controlling the puck so that they don’t have to defend. However, Corey Sznajder’s data illuminates that they are perfectly average at doing defense-heavy work.

Verdict

Dallas in 7.

I wasn’t confident with my Dallas pick over Vegas, but I’m even less confident with this one. And yet it’s precisely because the Stars are the better team. However, this matchup feels a little too much like Boston vs. Florida last year. The Avalanche have a built-in gameplan: with the Stars fresh off a brutal seven-round series, Colorado needs to put on the jets, make it a race, and play physical so that Dallas can feel in the thick of it again. It doesn’t get talked about a lot, but the Avalanche really pushed around the Jets at times, so the perception that they’re just a bunch of bookworms + Nathan MacKinnon is simply wrong.

So why am I picking Dallas? Because unlike the Jets, whose defense was actually only good rather than elite, with goaltending that cleaned up a lot of their sloppy/poorly designed safeguarding, the Stars are anything but. They are elite defensively, they have goaltending to accentuate it, and actual designs to counter attack. As I believe this will come down to each team’s depth showing out, the edge has to go to Dallas. It’s not the edge it was before the trade deadline, but as we saw with Vegas — the margins for error are thin, and within that margin, the Stars have a subtle but no less vital edge.

*Where the hell did ESPN give Emily Kaplan that info about Vegas being the best rush team in the league? I recall them mentioning that and immediately thinking “huh???” I sometimes think telecasts poo poo analytics so much because they simply can’t be bothered to do more homework like distinguishing between defense/goaltending, rush scoring/rush generation, etc. I realize proprietary data is sometimes used, but still. I don’t think I’m being pedantic either. If you want to communicate the game to viewers, why not do so accurately? This reminds me of the UFC’s awful habit of gassing up every lameduck contender as “well everyone has a puncher’s chance!”