{"id":542132,"date":"2026-04-05T14:09:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T14:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/542132\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T14:09:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T14:09:02","slug":"avalanche-get-a-shutout-from-wedgewood-essentially-bury-the-stars-denver-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/542132\/","title":{"rendered":"Avalanche get a shutout from Wedgewood, essentially bury the Stars \u2013 Denver Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Colorado Avalanche are going to win the Central Division, the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference and the Presidents\u2019 Trophy.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a matter of when, not if.<\/p>\n<p>The Avs earned a 2-0 win over the Dallas Stars on Saturday afternoon, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/standings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">getting to 110 points while the Stars are stuck at 102<\/a>. Colorado has also played 75 games while Dallas has played 77. In the words (or hand motions) of Vince Carter, this thing is over.<\/p>\n<p>It was a tight contest, one that had a playoff feel. The score was tied 0-0 after two periods before a beautiful pass from Artturi Lehkonen to Martin Necas finally helped the Avalanche get on the board. It was a sweet goal that proved to be the game-winner.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Breaking the ice, courtesy of Lehky and Marty \ud83d\ude4c <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/x6meLGd0Xz\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/x6meLGd0Xz<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 x \u2013 Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Avalanche\/status\/2040543260398305563?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">April 4, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/denversports.com\/nhl\/colorado-avalanche\/nathan-mackinnon-gets-goal-no-50-but-avs-give-up-eight-to-nhls-worst-team\/2129627\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Nathan MacKinnon<\/a> would add an empty-netter, his 51st goal of the season, and the Stars couldn\u2019t solve Scott Wedgewood.<\/p>\n<p>The No. 1 goalie for the Avalanche made 17 saves, including a couple of clutch ones down the stretch to secure the victory.<\/p>\n<p>This means that Dallas and the Minnesota Wild will have to play in Round 1 while Colorado will get the last team in the postseason dance, the final wild card slot.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing is officially clinched, but it will be soon and the race for the best record in the NHL is all but decided.<\/p>\n<p>The Avalanche will still have to go through either the Stars or Wild in Round 2 to win the Stanley Cup, but this result was the cherry on top of what has been an excellent regular season.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PetersenWill\" data-show-count=\"false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Follow @PetersenWill<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@DenverSports1043\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-perfmatters-preload=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Subscribe-Banner.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"mobile-signup\"\/>\t&#13;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" data-perfmatters-preload=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Subscribe-Banner_DS.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"desktop-signup\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/denversports.com\/daily\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/DenverSportsEmail-300x250-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"mobile-signup\"\/>\t&#13;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/DenverSportsEmail-830x100-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"desktop-signup\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Colorado Avalanche are going to win the Central Division, the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-542132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-avalanche","11":"tag-coloradoavalanche","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116352501016551532","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}