Colorado Avalanche survive elimination

The Colorado Avalanche came out firing, with five goals in the first period turning into a 6-3 win over the Dallas Stars and keeping them alive in the Western Conference semifinals of the National Hockey League playoffs Monday at Rogers Place Arena in Edmonton Alberta.

This barrage by Colorado put it still behind in games, 3-2, and avoiding elimination. In the other game played at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, it was the Tampa Bay Lightening winning its fourth in a row and clinching its Eastern Conference semis over the Boston Bruins, which won only game one.

Tampa Bay now awaits the winner of the New York Islanders-Philadelphia Flyers series, and they play tonight with the Isles up 3-1 in the best of seven. In the Western Conference, the Las Vegas Golden Knights own a 3-1 series lead over the Vancouver Canucks, and the teams play tonight. The survivor plays the Colorado-Dallas winnner.

The Avalanche sent in three quick goals, one each from Nathan Mackinnon, Nazem Kadri and Mikko Rantanen, and  then Andre Burakovsky scored his first of two and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare finished the onslaught late in the period. The one Colorado goal in period two came from Burakovsky. In assists, it was one each from Gabriel Landekog, Matt Nieto, Logan O’Connor, Mackinnon, Burakovsky and Rantanen.

As for Dallas, it scored twice in the second period on goals from Jamie Benn and Joe Pavelski, and the third period tally was by Miro Heiskanen. Assists went to Heiskanen, Mattias Janpak, Roope Hintz, and Denis Gurianov had three. The Stars were out shot 41-34.

But the biggest damage inflected on the Stars was in penalties, 11 of them made for 38 minutes in the penalty box. Colorado was called for nine and served 18 minutes in the box.

It sometimes doesn’t matter when you are out shot, as with the Bruins getting of 47 shots to the Lightening 35. After a scoreless first period, each team scored once each in the next two periods, but in the overtime, it was Tampa Bay celebrating the winning goal from Anthony Cirelli, his second of the game, and Ondrej Palat tallied the other.

Tampa Bay picked up two assists from Brandon Point and one from Blake Coleman. Boston’s goals came from David Krejci and David Pastrarke, with Patrice Bergeron and Krejci adding assists.Only four penalties were whistled on each team.