{"id":542273,"date":"2026-04-05T15:44:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T15:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/542273\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T15:44:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T15:44:33","slug":"avalanche-2-0-stars-apr-4-2026-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/542273\/","title":{"rendered":"Avalanche 2-0 Stars (Apr 4, 2026) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

DALLAS — \u2014 Martin Necas<\/a> broke a scoreless tie midway through the third period, Nathan MacKinnon<\/a> added an empty-netter and the NHL-leading Colorado Avalanche<\/a> took a big step toward home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs with a 2-0 victory over the Dallas Stars<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Scott Wedgewood<\/a> made 17 saves against his former team for his third shutout of the season in the first meeting of these Central Division rivals not to go to a shootout. Dallas won two of those three.<\/p>\n

The regulation win gave the Avalanche an eight-point edge over the Stars, who have five games remaining. Colorado has seven games to go. <\/p>\n

The Stars won each of the postseason meetings with the Avs the past two seasons, and a second-round showdown could be looming this spring.<\/p>\n

Dallas is headed toward an opening-round match with third-place Minnesota, which pulled within four points of the Stars with a 4-1 victory over Ottawa and has an extra game remaining.<\/p>\n

While Wedgewood has a good chance to start in net for the Avalanche, the Stars went with Casey DeSmith<\/a>, the backup to Jake Oettinger<\/a>, in the final regular-season meeting. DeSmith made 20 stops.<\/p>\n

Colorado was without star defenseman Cale Makar<\/a> for a second straight game due to an upper-body injury, while fellow blueliner Brent Burns<\/a> became the second player in NHL history to play in 1,000 consecutive games.<\/p>\n

Necas found a seam behind the Dallas defense and tipped in a perfect pass from Artturi Lehkonen<\/a> for his 36th goal 10:39 into the third. MacKinnon’s NHL-leading 51st came in the final minute after Wedgewood withstood a frantic rush moments earlier.<\/p>\n

Stars forward Arttu Hyry<\/a> had what appeared to be a wide-open look at a tying goal in the slot, but misfired as the puck fluttered over the net.<\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

Avalanche: St. Louis visits Sunday in the first of consecutive meetings. The rematch is Tuesday at the Blues.<\/p>\n

Stars: Face Calgary at home Tuesday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS — \u2014 Martin Necas broke a scoreless tie midway through the third period, Nathan MacKinnon added an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5117],"tags":[196,147,5278,5,4,197],"class_list":{"0":"post-542273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-stars","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-stars","10":"tag-dallasstars","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-stars"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116352874268482890","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542273","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=542273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}