Open Thread: Colorado Avalanche vs. Dallas Stars Game 5 (7:30 p.m. MT)

It’s another Colorado Avalanche playoffs game day!

After tying this first-round series up at 2-2 after a dominant 4-0 win over the Dallas Stars, the Colorado Avalanche look to take the lead here tonight in game five.

Colorado Avalanche

Colorado comes into this very important game five off of a couple of very eventful games three and four, which saw their captain make his long-awaited return to the lineup. Not only did Gabe Landeskog play his first games in nearly three years, but he also contributed on the score sheet on Saturday.

Landeskog has had an immediate impact in his return, and this Avs team was really firing on all cylinders in game four. They’ll need to replicate that performance here tonight if they want to put the Stars on the brink of elimination, which is far easier said than done.

Projected Lineup

Artturi Lehkonen – Nathan MacKinnon – Martin Necas
Gabriel Landeskog – Brock Nelson – Valeri Nichushkin
Jonathan Drouin – Charlie Coyle – Joel Kiviranta
Parker Kelly – Jack Drury – Logan O’Connor

Devon Toews – Cale Makar
Samuel Girard – Josh Manson
Ryan Lindgren – Sam Malinski

Dallas Stars

Despite this Dallas team missing two of their top players, they’ve still managed to stay in this series, which is a testament to how opportunistic and deep they are as a team. This was never going to be an easy series, and Dallas has not made this series easy for Colorado.

Despite their missing players and whatnot, they’re still nothing to scoff at. And as I previously wrote, putting them on the brink of elimination tonight will be far easier said than done, because they have the opportunity to do the exact same. Neither team is going to be desperate here tonight, but the opportunity to make the other desperate and put them on the brink of elimination will most likely be more than enough for both of these teams to get up for this game.

Projected Lineup

Mikael Granlund – Roope Hintz – Mikko Rantanen
Mason Marchment – Matt Duchene – Tyler Seguin
Jamie Benn – Wyatt Johnston – Evgenii Dadonov
Oskar Back – Sam Steel – Colin Blackwell

Esa Lindell – Cody Ceci
Thomas Harley – Ilya Lyubushkin
Lian Bichsel – Alex Petrovic

Goaltenders

Once again, it’ll likely be Mackenzie Blackwood going against Jake Oettinger in the net. Blackwood is coming off his first career playoff shutout, which he earned in Game 4, and Oettinger is coming off a game where he was pulled in the third period in favor of Casey DeSmith. Oettinger was incredibly far down on the list of things that went wrong for Dallas in game four, and Pete Deboer did say that he was given the hook to get some rest before game five, so he should be just fine for tonight.