UPDATED SCHEDULE, GAME NOTES

The Avalanche will be seeing stars in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Dallas Stars.

A quicker turnaround than I expected: Game 1 of the best-of-7 series is 6 p.m. MT on Saturday at Rogers Place in Edmonton, the hub city of the Western Conference.

The second-seeded Avalanche will take a 6-1-1 postseason record, 2-0-1 in the round robin and 4-1 against Arizona in the first round, into the series.

The third-seeded Stars were 1-2-0 in the round robin and eliminated Calgary in six games, turning a 3-0 deficit on Thursday into a 7-3 win behind four goals from Denis Gurianov.

GAME NOTES

“I most definitely think we’re ready to make that next step, no doubt,” captain Gabriel Landeskog said. “We’ve been a group for the most part that’s been together for the last three, four years. We’ve grown together and been through the bad and we still have work to do.

“But the group that we have in our locker room has a lot of character and obviously we’ve seen the product that we can put on the ice when we do our job and work together as a group and work for another. We can do some really good things. We have a lot of work to do, though.”

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WESTERN CONFERENCE
SECOND ROUND
Best-of-7, Rogers Place, Edmonton

"HOME" team in CAPS
ALL times Mountain Time

Today 6 p.m. -- DALLAS (NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS)
Mon. 7:45 p.m. -- DALLAS (NBCSN, SN, TVAS)
Wed. 8:30 p.m. -- Dallas (NBCSN, SN, TVAS)
Fri., 8 p.m. -- Dallas (NBCSN, SN, TVAS)
*Sun. Aug. 30, TBD -- DALLAS
*Mon., Aug. 31, TBD -- Dallas
*Wed., Sept. 2, TBD -- DALLAS

*If necessary

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The Avalanche went 0-2-2 against Dallas in the regular season before beating them 4-0 in a round-robin game on Aug. 5. Pavel Francouz made 27 saves in that game.

Philipp Grubauer played all four regular-season games against the Stars, posting a 2.45 goals-against average and .927 save percentage. He had a 2-1-0 record against them before this season with a 1.79 GAA and .948 save percentage.

Grubauer has gone 5-0-1 in the postseason with one shutout, a 1.49 GAA and .947 save percentage. He went 1-0-1 in two round-robin games and won all four of his starts against the Coyotes, posting a 1.00 GAA and .953 save percentage.

“He was phenomenal,” coach Jared Bednar said. “He was right there for us all the way, almost perfect in the series. I liked everything he did for us in the series. We’ve come to expect it from Grubi.”

Francouz stopped 19 of 21 shots in a 4-2 loss in Game 3; there were two empty-net goals.

Led by centers Nathan MacKinnon and Nazem Kadri, the Avalanche have a balanced attack in which 14 players have a goal this postseason and 17 have a point.

MacKinnon has a playoff-leading 13 points (four goals, nine assists) and an eight-game point streak to begin a playoff year, two shy of Joe Sakic’s franchise record, set in 1995-96. MacKinnon had 10 points (three goals, seven assists) in five games against the Coyotes. He has 42 points (15 goals, 27 assists) in 33 career playoff games.

Kadri has taken much of the scoring burden off MacKinnon. He’s tied for fourth in playoff scoring with 11 points (six goals, five assists) in eight games and has a postseason high five power-play goals. He had seven points (five goals, two assists) in five games in the first round.

Kadri already has surpassed the playoff totals he had with the Toronto Maple Leafs; he had 10 points (three goals, seven assists) in 19 games with them, along with 58 penalty minutes. He hasn’t taken a single penalty this postseason.

Mikko Rantanen has 10 points (three goals, seven assists) and Andre Burakovsky has eight points (three goals, five assists).

As for the defense, rookie Cale Makar leads the way with seven points (two goals, five assists) and Samuel Girard has four points (one goal, three assists).

Bednar said everyone practiced Friday except for Valeri Nichuschkin, who he said has “some bumps and bruises.” Guess that means Vladislav Namestsnikov could be available. He didn’t play in the last three games after colliding with Mackinnon in Game 2.

The projected lineup

FORWARDS
Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen
Andre Burakovsky -- Nazem Kadri – Joonas Donski
Tyson Jost -- J.T. Compher – Valeri Nichushkin
Matt Nieto -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- Matt Calvert

DEFENSE
Ryan Graves -- Cale Makar
Samuel Girard – Ian Cole
Nikita Zadorov – Erik Johnson

GOALIES
Philipp Grubauer
Pavel Francouz



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