Johnston gave the Stars a 1-0 lead nine seconds into the first. Off the opening face-off, he chased down a dump-in to the right of the net and scored with a sharp-angled shot that deflected in off the side of Blackwood.
The goal is tied for the fifth-fastest to begin a game in Stanley Cup Playoff history.
“Just [saw] a little opening. Figured, ‘Why not? Let’s try it’ and got lucky enough it went in,” Johnston said. “It’s probably mostly luck. It’s the biggest cliche, I hate to say it, but when you get pucks on net, good things happen. Just sometimes you see something and you try it and you never know. I don’t want to say if you try it enough it’ll go in, but it’s always nice to throw something on net and it go in.”
Thomas Harley made it 2-0 at 19:15. His shot from the high slot was stopped by the blocker of Blackwood, but the rebound popped into the air and landed on the goalie’s back before rolling into the net.
“Just trying to get good results is probably the toughest thing (to balance). You just want to play great all the time, and sometimes it doesn’t go your way. So, you just have to try and stay the course,” Blackwood said. “You don’t want to lose, but at the same time, you can’t judge yourself based on every little thing that happens. You have to trust that you know you have a good game, good foundation, and you know bad stuff may happen, but you can bounce right back and play well again.”
Rantanen extended the lead to 3-0 with his first goal of the series at 1:12 of the second period. He finished off a pass from Hintz on a 2-on-1.
“We knew they were going to come out with their best effort, no doubt. I didn’t think we had the best execution to start the game, and even throughout the game, to be honest,” Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said. “There were some plays where we made almost uncharacteristic mistakes here and there, but stuff’s going to happen. … So, we’re going to clean that up here come Thursday.”
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