After finally seeing the Avs show 3rd period life last game, the Stars flipped their script and began dominating from the start in Game 4. It was 3-0 within ten minutes and the Avs couldn’t get their first shot on goal until 1:34 left in period one.

From there, it was mostly a laugher. We did start sleepwalking at the end of the 2nd, giving up two quick goals with some lazy play that led to a 5v3.

Then Hintz did this…

Sweet Jesus. Goal of the series. He just toyed with JT Compher and then fucking RIPPED it above Francouz’s glove.

Francouz ended up getting benched and will have to go back to KHL if we wants to be good at hockey again. Other than that, much of the game was the same old, same old Stars kicking ass that I’ve been writing about this whole time.

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The feel good story of the game is Valeri Nichushkin getting his participation trophy. He scored TWO goals last night. That’s two more than he scored for us all of last year!

He couldn’t even celebrate his second one because it was fluky as hell and we were killing them late, but still… Good for him.

We drafted Nichushkin 10th overall in 2013 and he found the NHL to be very challenging. Over six years, he spent half his time on the injured list or back in the KHL to be in a comfort zone. Last year, he came back stateside to give it one more shot with us, and he managed to score zero goals in 57 games.

The Avs picked him up for this season and he’s had the opportunity to skate around and participate in the NHL playoffs. I hope he’s enjoyed his time in Edmonton and will go home feeling a little bit less shitty about being the biggest bust in our franchise history.