British stone. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Dallas Stars enter the Olympic break riding a six-game winning streak. The Minnesota Wild won their last five games to go 8-1-1 before the NHL suspended its schedule for three weeks.
Both teams have held top-five records in the league for much of the season, and they’ve struggled to catch up with their rivals, the Colorado Avalanche.
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Such is the predicament of the mighty Central Division, and if the standings stay that way, the NHL’s isolated playoff format will pit the Stars against the Wild in the first round. The Avalanche will then have a chance to face the winner in the divisional round, likely knocking out two of the league’s top five teams in the second round.
“It’s a fun division,” Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson said, “because every game is so important.”
The Avalanche were 37-9 and scored an NHL-leading 83 points heading into halftime, a stellar record that had actually lost some of its luster from earlier this winter. They led the division by 12 points on Jan. 11, but the Wild (34-14-10) 78 points and the Stars (34-14-9) 77 closed the gap.
Colorado wraps up play on Wednesday against Utah when Dallas hosts Seattle. Minnesota has an extra day before its game against Colorado State on Thursday.
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“They’re more human now and are losing a few games, so if we win tomorrow and make some progress, we might be able to catch them,” Gustafsson said after Wednesday’s practice.
Colorado and Dallas play three more games. The Stars won their first game against the Avalanche in a shootout. Dallas and Minnesota met twice more, with the first two games split. After splitting the first two games, the Avalanche and Wild played two more games, with the Wild winning in a shootout.
“We pretty much have to sweep them, and we have to be well ahead of them to get into this position,” star center Matt Duchene said. “So can it do it? Yes. Will it do it? Honestly, probably not, but that’s okay. It feels like in our department, there are challenges that we go through every year, and we’re ready for it.”
The Avalanche have four players heading into the Olympic gold medal game in Italy on Sunday, three from the Wild and two from the Stars. The three teams sent a total of 23 athletes to the Winter Olympics, which made the final game even more intriguing. Not only do each club need to regain the momentum they had before the break, but the Olympians — especially Team USA and Team Canada — must also reintegrate into the team after not getting the rest that most of their NHL counterparts did.
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The Stars are expected to be without the team’s leading scorer Mikko Rantanen for several weeks after he suffered a lower-body injury against Finland at the Olympics.
“My experience with these scoring streaks is that when you have a big break like that, it throws off the rhythm,” Stars coach Glenn Gruzan said.
But that doesn’t mean he’s expected to decline, considering his team’s recent performance.
“Our guys feel like they’re doing better and we as coaches feel like we’re doing better in these five or six games than we were before,” Guruzan said. “I’m not taking that away from us.”
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With guards Quinn Hughes, Brock Faber and forward Matt Boldy winning gold for Team USA before heading to the White House in a whirlwind celebratory return, the Wild will have three key players who have been busy. But they’re still young and that experience should help them get into the playoffs, coach John Hines said.
“When you get into a high-stakes tournament environment, it’s really like three Game 7s because you have the quarterfinals and then you have the semifinals and then you have a medal game and all of that done,” Hines said, detailing the benefits: “Preparation, understanding how to play with that kind of pressure and fanfare, and knowing that one mistake could cost the game.”
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AP Sports Writer Stephen Hawkins in Dallas contributed to this report.
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL
