Mikko Rantanen had a supreme 4 point night, including his 500th point or his career, all with the Colorado Avalanche.

The Avalanche faced off against the Dallas Stars in a Central Division showdown on April 1st, and no foolin', we saw a much better effort all around than what the team showed against the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday.

Head Coach Jared Bednar called out too many passengers in the Wild game, and as Mikko Rantanen mentioned in his on ice post game interview, the team was "p*ssed off" at this effort.

Nova Scotia native Nathan MacKinnon opened up the scoring in the first period. The puck came down in the corner, and Mikko Rantanen, with 3 Stars converging on him, made a deft pass out front to an all alone MacKinnon, who ripped the shot past Jake Oettinger to make it 1-0.

Moving into the 2nd, Logan O'Connor got sprung by a nice pass from Andrew Cogliano, and surprised the Stars netminder with a shot that went 5 hole, making it 2-0 Avalanche.
Dallas wouldn't give up that easy though, and came back with a broken play on the power play to make it 2-1, as Tyler Seguin banged it in past Alexandar Georgiev.

The Nate MacKinnon show wouldn't stop there, with the great Nate scoring a pinball power play goal that was deflected at 19:47 of the 2nd to make it 3-1.

Moving into the 3rd, the Stars appeared to have another goal after a net front fracas had the puck in the back of the net. Georgiev was unable to get over in time, due to Logan O'Connor being in the crease. Well, it turned out that Ryan Suter, the wiley veteran defenseman had pushed him there, and the play was challenged and overruled, keeping the game at 3-1 Colorado.

Pavelski tipped in a puck late in the third, but it was too little, too late. Mikko capped off the night with an impressive bar down snipe into the empty net, sealing the victory 5-2 for the Colorado Avalanche.

This win ties them with Dallas for 2nd in the Central, with their eyes set on overtaking 1st place, currently occupied by the Minnesota Wild.

The Avalanche have a few days off, but will return to action on Tuesday to face the San Jose Sharks at 10:30 PM EST.

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