COLORADO AVALANCHE VS DALLAS STARS 11/5/2019

Two teams going in opposite directions are set to collide on Tuesday when the visiting Colorado Avalanche try to get on track against the red-hot Stars in Dallas.

Back on Oct. 19, the Avalanche notched a 6-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning to improve to 7-0-1 on the season. That same day, the Stars were mired in 1-7-1 start to their season before collecting a 4-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers.

Since then, the two Central Division rivals have seemingly traded places. The Avalanche are only 1-4-1 over their last six games, while the positive result in Philadelphia kicked off a stretch of six wins in seven games (6-1-0) for Dallas.

These divergent paths coincided last Friday, when the Stars recorded a 2-1 road win over the Avalanche despite being outshot by a 39-29 margin.

Unsurprisingly, Colorado's slump has coincided with the absence of Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen to long-term, lower-body injuries. Colin Wilson has also been out of action for the last three games with a lower-body injury, and is questionable to play against the Stars on Tuesday.

An improved offense is the most obvious answer for the Stars' success. The team has scored 12 goals over the course of its current three-game winning streak, after scoring only 25 times in the first 13 games.

Increased familiarity and cohesiveness have been a key to the turnaround, defenseman Esa Lindell said.

"We've talked a lot about playing together as a five-man unit. Being predictable, that helps everyone be that half-second faster and that makes a big difference," Lindell said.

The all-around effort was apparent in Dallas' 4-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday. The Stars held their own in even-strength play and dominated special teams, scoring twice on the power play and holding the Canadiens scoreless on five Montreal power-play chances.

It was a different story for Colorado on Saturday, as the Avalanche suffered a 3-0 defeat to the Arizona Coyotes for their first shutout loss of the season.

While two first-period goals from the Coyotes put the Avalanche in an early hole, Colorado head coach Jared Bednar saw signs for optimism in the second frame.

"The second period is the way that we have to play, especially when you're missing a couple of top guys and some of the offense isn't there," Bednar said. "We have to be tighter defensively. The first period I just thought we were over-complicating things with the puck. ... The second period we were simple, we were hard-working, we were underneath checks and we did a nice job."

The shutout loss ended Nathan MacKinnon's season-opening 13-game points streak. MacKinnon recorded 18 points (eight goals, 10 assists) over the course of his streak, and he had been the only NHL player to collect a point in every game prior to Saturday.

Philipp Grubauer is likely to get the start in net for the Avalanche, after saving 27 of 29 shots against Dallas on Friday. Grubauer has only a 2-2-0 record in seven career games against the Stars despite a sterling 1.84 goals against average and .945 save percentage.

Anton Khudobin started for Dallas against the Avalanche last Friday, but regular goalie Ben Bishop is the probable starter for Tuesday's game. Last season's Vezina Trophy runner-up is again in good form, as Bishop has a 2.33 GAA and .922 save percentage in 11 games.

Stars forward Roope Hintz has four points (three goals, one assist) over his last three games.