After losing their eighth consecutive series-opening game on Saturday, the Stars were in real danger of falling behind 2-0 — with two home-ice losses, no less — to the Colorado Avalanche on Monday night in their first-round series.

Instead, Dallas scratched out a third-period equalizer to get the game to overtime and Colin Blackwell came through with the extra-time winner to deliver a 4-3 victory the Stars desperately required.

It’s hard to overstate how good this win must have felt for a Dallas club that dropped seven straight games to close out the regular season, then lost its first playoff contest. The Stars hadn’t tasted victory since beating the lowly Nashville Predators on April 3, back when you didn’t have to fight for every inch of ice the way 16 playoff-calibre clubs are now. 

The series now shifts to Colorado, where the Avs will be looking to leverage the home-advantage they hold after leaving Texas with a split.

Before we get there, though, let’s dive into a Game 2 win for Dallas that has turned this Central Division matchup into a best-of-five affair.

Nothing like an unlikely OT hero to give a team a lift, right?

Colin Blackwell didn’t dress for Dallas in Game 1, but came into the lineup in place of Mavrik Bourque for the series’ second contest. Sure enough, the guy who played less than every player in the game — 12:37 of ice in nearly four periods of hockey — made the contest’s biggest play when he followed up his own shot and deposited the second opportunity behind Colorado goalie Mackenzie Blackwood at 17:46 of the first overtime frame. 

The only reason Dallas got the game to extra time was because Evgenii Dadonov — who played less than all but two Stars forwards — paid the price to tie the game 3-3 halfway through the third, whacking a puck home from the lip of the crease while taking a cross-check from Joel Kiviranta.

As it happens, Colorado’s supporting cast did its part, too.

Fourth-line centre Jack Drury pulled the Avs even just 1:12 after they’d fallen behind 2-1 early in the second period, converting a feed from linemate Logan O’Connor. Then, late in the same stanza, it was O’Connor finding the back of the net to stake Colorado to the one-goal lead it could not quite protect in the third. O’Connor now has four points in the series after collecting a pair of assists in his team’s Game 1 win.

Dallas’s first goal of the night came from the stick of Tyler Seguin, who returned in the final regular-season game of the schedule after being sidelined for five months thanks to hip surgery. The first-period snipe marked Seguin’s first goal since he found the range against, you guessed it, the Avalanche way back on Nov. 29. 

With Jason Robertson unlikely to make an appearance in this series after injuring himself in that same contest when Seguin returned, it would be huge for Dallas if the latter can get up to speed quickly and fill a top-six role coming off this long layoff. Recall, Seguin was playing some productive hockey before being forced to the sidelines, recording 20 points in his first 19 outings of the season.

If Seguin coming back and scoring after a half-year on the shelf is a big story for Dallas, the return of captain Gabriel Landeskog following a three-year absence would have been a massive development for Colorado. 

In the leadup to the game, it sure looked like Landeskog was going to play his first NHL tilt since lifting the Cup with Colorado in 2022. The big Swede participated in the morning skate and was whipping around during the pre-game warmup. 

When push came to shove, though, Miles Wood got the tap for the final spot in coach Jared Bednar’s lineup. We’ll see if that changes when the series shifts to Denver.

With stud defenceman Miro Heiskanen possibly sidelined for this entire series, you knew Dallas was going to lean hard on Thomas Harley. The 23-year-old defenceman — who had an assist in Game 1 — came through in a big way for the Stars in this crucial win.

No. 55 got the goal that — if only briefly — gave Dallas its first lead of the series early in the second period when he wired a shot home from the top of the slot past Blackwood’s glove hand. 

Overall, Harley played nearly 36 minutes in this four-period game — more than any skater on either team — and wound up plus-2 while being matched up against the Avs’ big boys all night. 

If something felt eerily familiar about all this for Dallas, it’s because the Stars did manage to lose two home-ice games to open the playoffs last year, digging themselves a sizable hole versus the Vegas Golden Knights before ripping off four consecutive wins to claim the series.

While they still managed to escape with a series victory, the Stars have to be thrilled their task this year, as they head to Colorado, isn’t quite as tall as the one they faced 12 months ago versus the Knights.