Avalanche strategy to win Game 4: 'It's got to be all about ourselves'

The Avalanche are focused on themselves to play consistent, productive hockey to beat the Stars in Game 4 Monday night.

"Obviously, the stuff that we get from the coaching staff is a lot about how to exploit Dallas. And I think at times, especially for us, it's got to be all about ourselves. I think we got to focus on how we're going to beat them rather than what they're doing to combat what we're doing," Cale Makar said after morning skate. "A lot of the time, when guys kind of frame it in the mindset that it's all about kind of us, it helps them. So I feel like that's what we've been doing."

The Stars only allowed one goal in the 4-1 loss on Saturday night. The Avalanche need to create more traffic in front of the net to get pucks past goaltender Jake Oettinger.

Related: Avalanche effort not enough, lose Game 3 to Stars

"I think we can get more guys to the net. We always have a guy there but if we can get a second guy around the net, even a third guy when our D (defense) shoots, coming through the hash marks and see if we can pick up some rebounds and stuff because there are some rebounds there," Mikko Rantanen said. "Their D last game did a good job clearing those. Get three guys around the net, simplify a little bit and try to get a bounce."

Head coach Jared Bednar said his team played well in all three games but the last two have resulted in losses. His staff has worked to find solutions but consistency is a key issue.

"We're yet to play with a lead in this series, and we're three games in. I felt like last game, we had a great first period. We weren't able to come up with the first goal. We had three power plays," Bednar said. "We had a really good first period in Game 2 in Dallas, it slipped away in the second. We're playing some good hockey. I'd like to see it sustained for longer than 40 minutes, so we get a full 60 in there, but it's not for lack of effort. Dallas has something to say about it too. It's a pretty good hockey team."

Projected lineup

Bednar said forward Jonathan Drouin will be a game time decision after missing the entire first round and three games of the second due to a lower-body injury he suffered in the last game of the season. Assuming he'll play, here's what the lineup may be:

Jonathan Drouin — Nathan MacKinnon — Mikko Rantanen
Artturi Lehkonen — Casey Mittelstadt — Valeri Nichushkin
Miles Wood — Ross Colton — Zach Parise
Brandon Duhaime — Yakov Trenin — Andrew Cogliano

Devon Toews — Cale Makar
Samuel Girard — Josh Manson
Jack Johnson — Sean Walker

Alexandar Georgiev
Justus Annunen

The puck drops at 7:30 p.m. MT at Ball Arena. The Stars are up in the best-of-seven series 2-1.

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