By Basil Stroh
5 3 2025
AVALANCHE, STARS PUT IT ALL ON THE LINE IN GAME 7
The Stars (50-26-6, 106 points) and Avalanche (49-29-4, 102 points), who were separated by one win and four standings points during the 2024-25 regular season, have both held the series lead in a thrilling First Round matchup that has averaged 6.5 goals per game and will fittingly require a seventh and deciding contest Saturday on ABC, ESPN+, Sportsnet and TVA Sports.
* NHL Release: Stars, Avalanche Face Off in Marquee Saturday Night Game 7
* #NHLStats Pack: Avalanche and Stars to Meet in Fourth Head-to-Head Game 7
* The 199th Game 7 in Stanley Cup Playoffs history will mark the fourth Game 7 between the Stars and Avalanche, the seventh head-to-head matchup in NHL history with as many Game 7 showdowns. Dallas has won each of the past three Game 7s between the clubs en route to an eventual appearance in the Stanley Cup Final (2020 R2, 2000 CF & 1999 CF).
* In the last Game 7 between these teams (2020 R2), the score was tied 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 and 4-4 before then Stars forward and current Avalanche Joel Kiviranta capped a hat trick with an overtime goal. Kiviranta became the first rookie in Stanley Cup Playoffs history to score a hat trick in a Game 7 and the first player overall to do so since Wayne Gretzky 27 years earlier in the 1993 Conference Finals. Kiviranta also joined Esa Tikkanen (1991 DSF) as the second player to score a Game 7 hat trick that included an overtime winner.
* The Stars will contest a Game 7 for the fourth consecutive postseason (2-1 over that span), just the ninth team in NHL history with a run that long and first since Anaheim’s five-year stretch from 2013 to 2017.
* Stars forward Wyatt Johnston has emerged as a clutch Game 7 performer for Dallas. In Game 7 of the 2023 Second Round, he became the youngest player in NHL history to score a Game 7-clinching goal – doing so one day after his 20th birthday on May 15, 2023. In Game 7 of the 2024 First Round against the then-defending Stanley Cup champion Golden Knights, Johnston opened the scoring in a tightly-contested 2-1 victory and became the second player in NHL history to score a goal in each of his first two Game 7s at the age of 20 or younger (also Jeremy Roenick: 1990 DSF & DF w/ CHI).
* Colorado will look to channel the Joe Sakic-era Avalanche, who guided the franchise to its last Game 7 win in the 2002 Conference Semifinals (vs. SJS). The Avalanche are looking to snap a string of six consecutive defeats in the winner-takes-all contest and to do so will need to earn their first Game 7 win on the road since the franchise’s move to Denver in 1995-96.
* The Avalanche have been buoyed by the return of their longtime captain, Gabriel Landeskog, who re-joined the team for Game 3 of this series after missing 1,032 days due to injury as detailed by his wife, Melissa, in a recent episode of the podcast “Never Offside with Julie & Cat.’ Landeskog (1-3—4 in 4 GP) has produced at a point-per-game pace since his return.
* On Friday, Landeskog was named alongside Wild goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and Blue Jackets forward Sean Monahan as a finalist for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy which is awarded “to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey,”
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