Dallas finished Tuesday’s game with the statistical advantages of a competitive performance: a 59-47 advantage in shot attempts and a 26-25 lead in shots on goal. The Stars still left American Airlines Center with a 3-2 defeat to Colorado, because volume became only occasional danger while Martin Nečas converted the Avalanche’s best sequences.
That is the uncomfortable distinction for the Stars at 2-3-1. Attempts measure activity. Shots measure pucks that reached the net. Neither statistic explains whether a chance arrived with a clean shooting lane, forced a difficult save or created a second opportunity. Dallas had one more shot on goal than Colorado. Colorado had one more goal.
The goaltending split makes the margin easier to see. Jake Oettinger stopped 22 of 25 shots for Dallas, while Mackenzie Blackwood turned aside 24 of 26 for the Avalanche. Oettinger’s performance kept the game close enough for a late push. Blackwood’s work prevented Dallas from turning its territorial edge into a different scoreboard.
Dallas’ two goals also arrived under different conditions. Seguin’s power-play pass deflected into the net; Hintz converted Seguin’s feed at even strength. The first benefited from a bounce, the second from a completed connection.
Both count equally on the scoreboard, but a team cannot plan on a defender’s skate supplying the last touch every night. The larger finishing shortage makes the Hintz sequence the more useful example to repeat.
The Stars generated pressure after that, including Jamie Benn’s one-timer that Colorado defenseman Noah Juulsen blocked. But the final touch never arrived. A late push can be real without being productive, and this one ended with Dallas still searching for a shot that would beat Blackwood rather than merely reach him.
Nečas supplied Colorado’s better example of conversion. Just over three minutes into the second period, he and MacKinnon traded the puck through the offensive zone before Nečas finished immediately from high in the slot. The play was brief, coordinated and decisive. Dallas had the attempt edge; Colorado had a two-man combination that turned possession into a goal before the opportunity evaporated.
Nečas scored again later in the period during a Colorado five-on-three power play. Devon Toews’ shot was stopped, Gabriel Landeskog moved the rebound across, and Nečas finished from a sharp angle. The situation matters: Dallas’ penalty trouble helped create the opening, so this was not proof that Colorado controlled every five-on-five shift.
It was proof that the Avalanche punished a major advantage with far less hesitation.
Blackwood then protected the two-goal cushion. He stopped Sam Steel on a breakaway at 17:37 of the second period and denied Justin Hryckowian’s one-timer from the slot less than two minutes later. Those saves carried more weight than another harmless Dallas attempt would have. They removed two chances that could have changed the game’s shape before Hintz’s third-period goal.