Avalanche effort not enough, lose Game 3 to Stars

Despite the final score of the Avalanche loss to the Stars, Game 3 was a tight one. Dallas scored two empty-net goals at the end of the game to hike up the score but Colorado kept it within one until then.

The Avalanche's top line scored the only goal of the game after being absent from the scoresheet in Game 2. Mikko Rantanen grabbed the rebound from Nathan MacKinnon's shot and popped it to the back of the net midway through the second period.

"I thought we did a lot of great things. We really had a lot of chances, a lot of good looks. Just Oettinger was great and we made a couple of big errors that cost us," MacKinnon said after the loss.

Related: Avalanche look to solve issues from Game 2 loss ahead of Game 3 vs Stars

Head coach Jared Bednar swapped Artturi Lehkonen and Valeri Nichushkin for his starting lineup to, as he has said about changing lines in the past, see what happens.

Logan Stankoven and Tyler Seguin scored two goals each in the 4-1 loss and Jake Oettinger made 28 saves.

"We had a couple of really good looks in the first and didn't do it. We had a couple of really good looks in the second and next thing you know, we're down by one. Just kind of feels like we push push, push and then we make one mistake and then ended up in the back of the net in the second," Bednar said. "It was unfortunate, but you can make those mistakes against Dallas because they have the ability to … you don't need to give them a bunch of rush chances to put it in the back of the net with their skill.

Valeri Nichushkin was held scoreless which ended his playoff goal-scoring streak. He had scored a goal in each of the seven postseason games played and tied with Pat LaFontaine (1992 with the Buffalo Sabres) for longest playoff goal-scoring streak in NHL history at seven games.

The Avalanche face off against the Stars in Game 4 on Monday at 7:30 p.m. MT.

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