Who has the edge?

FORWARDS

Tyler Seguin prob­a­bly needs to get back to being Dal­las’ most dan­ger­ous for­ward if the Stars hope to hang with the Avalanche. The reg­u­lar-sea­son lead­ing scor­er, Seguin is look­ing for his first goal and has just three assists in eight play­off games (he missed one because he was “unfit to play”). But Dal­las has star rook­ie sniper Denis Guri­anov, who had four goals in a wild Game 6 vic­to­ry over Cal­gary, and top-end vet­er­an tal­ent in Joe Pavel­s­ki, Jamie Benn, Alexan­der Radulov, Blake Comeau and Andrew Cogliano. The Stars bounced back and won from two-goal deficits eight times dur­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son, so a 2–0 lead doesn’t mean much to these guys. The Avalanche, mean­while, has cen­ters Nathan MacK­in­non and Nazem Kadri and a load of dan­ger­ous wingers who were awe­some in the first round against Ari­zona. Col­orado wants to roll four lines, and is the deep­er club up front. Depth usu­al­ly pre­vails in the play­offs. EDGE: Avalanche

DEFENSEMEN

It’s going to be fun to two of the best young defense­men in the league in Dal­las’ Miro Heiska­nen and the Avs’ Cale Makar — the top two blue­lin­ers select­ed in the 2017 draft. The Stars could have had Makar at No. 3 over­all but chose Heiska­nen. Makar went fourth to Col­orado. Both are elite skat­ing play­mak­ers who run the top pow­er-play. Heiska­nen leads all NHL blue-lin­ers in play­off scor­ing with 12 points, just one behind over­all leader MacK­in­non. John Kling­berg and Esa Lin­dell are also puck-mov­ing defense­men for the Stars and Jamie “Big Rig” Olek­si­ak is the guy you don’t want to meet in the cor­ner or in front of the net. Col­orado is stout from top to bot­tom on the back end and loves to quick­ly move the puck up ice. There is no short­age of tal­ent and the Avs’ Erik John­son and Ian Cole are the hard­core vet­er­an D you want on your side. EDGE: Avalanche

GOALTENDING

The Stars will begin the series with 5‑foot-11 Anton Khu­dobin, who has sta­tis­ti­cal­ly out­played open­ing-night 6–7 starter Ben Bish­op in the reg­u­lar sea­son and play­offs. But giv­en that the Avalanche forced the bench­ing of Arizona’s Dar­cy Kuep­mer twice in the first round, Bish­op could play a fac­tor. The Den­ver-born Bish­op is champ­ing at the bit for a chance. Col­orado will begin with Philipp Grubauer and have Pavel Fran­couz ready for relief. Grubauer went 4–0 against Ari­zona and is the Avs’ leader in net for the sec­ond straight year in the con­fer­ence semi­fi­nals. Edge: Even

POWER PLAY

Col­orado was an NHL-best 35% (7‑of-20) with the man-advan­tage in the first round and is play­ing with extra­or­di­nary con­fi­dence. The Avs went a com­bined 6‑of-11 in the last two games against Ari­zona. The top unit with Makar, MacK­in­non, Kadri, Gabe Lan­deskog and Mikko Ranta­nen is mak­ing tape-to-tape pass­es and pro­duc­ing cre­ative ways to score in all areas of the offen­sive zone. For Dal­las, Heiska­nen and Kling­berg are very good up high and Benn is always dan­ger­ous around the net. Edge: Avalanche

PENALTY KILLING

Block­ing shots is often the key to a suc­cess­ful PK and both teams have the play­ers will­ing to do that. In these play­offs, Col­orado is killing penal­ties at a siz­zling 88% and Dal­las is 76.7%. Edge: Avalanche

COACHING

Inter­im Stars coach Rick Bow­ness took over for Jim Mont­gomery in Decem­ber and prob­a­bly hasn’t got­ten out of his play­ers what Mont­gomery did. But Bow­ness, 65, has been coach­ing in the league since 1984 and cer­tain­ly has exten­sive expe­ri­ence. The Avs’ Jared Bed­nar is look­ing for his third pro­fes­sion­al cham­pi­onship as a head coach — first in the NHL. Edge: Even

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FIVE THINGS TO WATCH

1. The Avalanche strug­gled in reg­u­lar sea­son against Stars. Col­orado played Dal­las four times and came out on the oth­er side 0–2‑2. The Avs fell twice in reg­u­la­tion, 2–1 and 4–1, before a pair of mid­sea­son over­time loss­es (one via shootout). How­ev­er, in round-robin seed­ing play, Col­orado rolled through Dal­las, 4–0, for an Avs vic­to­ry in Edmonton.

2. Dal­las has already proven its play­off resilience. In Game 6 against the Cal­gary Flames, the Stars trailed 3–0 in the first peri­od — and pro­ceed­ed to score sev­en con­sec­u­tive goals (includ­ing four from rook­ie for­ward Denis Guri­anov). It marked the sixth time an NHL play­off team has ever trailed 3–0 in the first peri­od, then came back to win a series-end­ing game.

3. Will fatigue become a fac­tor? The NHL didn’t wait for all of its first-round games to end before fir­ing up the sec­ond round. The Avs have played games on 5 of the last 10 days. The Stars have played six games over 11 days. Col­orado play­ers tout­ed the ben­e­fit of prac­tic­ing at high-alti­tude when Avs train­ing camp resumed in July. Time to show that con­di­tion­ing on the ice.

4. Philipp Grubauer and Pavel Fran­couz will final­ly be chal­lenged. Colorado’s goalie tan­dem was hard­ly test­ed against the Coy­otes, with the Avs car­ry­ing a hefty shots-on-goal advan­tage over five games (185–108). Expect Dal­las to be much more aggres­sive offen­sive­ly with Guri­anov and cen­ter Joe Pavel­s­ki cur­rent­ly tied for the NHL lead in play­off goals scored, along with Avalanche for­ward Nazem Kadri, at six apiece.

5. Will Nathan MacKinnon’s hot streak con­tin­ue? The Avs’ MVP final­ist leads the NHL with 13 points (four goals) and an eight-game points streak inside the Edmon­ton bub­ble. MacK­in­non — already world-renowned for his offen­sive skill — has tak­en great strides to become one of the league’s best two-way for­wards. He’s unafraid to ini­ti­ate con­tact on the forecheck or drop gloves when necessary.

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Avs-Stars predictions

Mike Cham­bers, Avalanche beat writer: Based on how the Avs breezed past Ari­zona in the first round with a relent­less attack and high­ly dan­ger­ous pow­er play, I don’t see them los­ing this series. That said, Dal­las has a vet­er­an team capa­ble of win­ning some games. If the Stars can win one or two in over­time, it could be a tight series. Avalanche in six.

Kyle Fredrick­son, Avalanche beat writer: The Avalanche lived up to its billing in the first round, but let’s be hon­est, Ari­zona lacked the over­all ros­ter tal­ent to make it a chal­lenge. That’s not the case in Round 2. Dal­las has the goal­tend­ing, defen­sive com­mit­ment and scor­ing prowess to push Col­orado to the brink. But I expect goalie Philipp Grubauer to show up big when the Avs need it most. Avalanche in seven.

Sean Keel­er, colum­nist: The longer Ben Bish­op — 4–2 in his last six reg­u­lar-sea­son meet­ings against the Avs, giv­ing up just nine goals — stays away from this series, the bet­ter. Dal­las back­up goalie Anton Khudobin’s got a killer D in front of him, but ulti­mate­ly, Colorado’s supe­ri­or depth, and Nazem Kadri’s hot hand, should win out. Advan­tage: Irre­sistible force. Avalanche in seven.

Mark Kis­zla, sports colum­nist: Four Ws down, 12 to go in quest for Cup. And luck plays a role in jour­ney. Col­orado gets eas­i­er sec­ond-round draw than Vegas. Every lit­tle bit helps. Avalanche in six.

Lori Punko, deputy sports edi­tor: There is no doubt the Avalanche has offen­sive fire-pow­er, outscor­ing the Coy­otes 22–8 — with 11 of those goals com­ing on the pow­er play. Con­verse­ly, Dal­las has one of the NHL’s top defens­es. Stars’ defense­man Miro Heiska­nen has 12 play­off points, just one behind the Avs’ Nathan MacK­in­non with 13. But the Avs have the advan­tage over a Dal­las penal­ty-kill that has giv­en up sev­en goals in nine play­off games. Avalanche in six