Dallas Stars Overtake Colorado Avalanche in THN Power Index After .500 Slide
The Dallas Stars have seized the No. 1 slot in The Hockey News weekly power index, bumping the Colorado Avalanche after the latter played .500 hockey since New Year’s Day.
Dallas Stars Claim Top Spot
A franchise-record ten-game winning streak erased the ten-point cushion Colorado held on Jan. 1. Dallas sits at 38-14-9, six points behind the Avalanche in the Central Division, yet its .732 points percentage since the calendar flipped leads the NHL. The run featured only three wins over current playoff teams, but coach Pete DeBoer’s group kept beating the clubs on the schedule and trimmed a penalty kill that now ranks inside the top five.
Avalanche Lose Momentum
Colorado (41-10-9) still tops the overall standings, but the gap has shrunk fast. An 11-8-2 record since Jan. 1 shaved the Avs’ points percentage from .859 to .758, while goals per game dropped from 4.2 to 3.1. Nathan MacKinnon has fallen behind Edmonton’s Connor McDavid in the scoring race, and Cale Makar trails Nashville’s Evan Bouchard among defensemen. Depth took another hit when winger Artturi Lehkonen joined the injured list last week, and front-office whispers link defenseman Samuel Girard’s $5 million cap hit to possible trade chatter ahead of Friday’s deadline.
Trade Deadline Moves Begin
Dallas struck first, importing 6-foot-8 defender Tyler Myers from Vancouver to add right-shot size for Central Division battles. Tampa Bay slipped from second to fifth after dropping three straight out of the Olympic break; Brayden Point returned, but Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy looked off-rhythm against playoff-bound lineups. Buffalo jumped to sixth on the back of a 26-8-2 run since Dec. 1, becoming the first Eastern team to reach 26 second-half wins — a 119-point pace across a full season.
Tightest Title Race Since 2005
Dallas, Colorado, Carolina, Minnesota and Tampa Bay sit within 11 points of one another with about 20 games left, the closest cluster this late in the salary-cap era. Points percentage gives Colorado a mere .005 edge over Carolina, so one regulation loss could flip first-round matchups. Western clubs are scoreboard-watching; the Central winner dodges a opening series with either the Avs or the streaking Wild, who have points in 16 straight behind Kirill Kaprizov’s franchise-record 220 goals in 381 games.
Bubble Teams Chase Points
Columbus has banked 27 points since Jan. 11, tied with Dallas for the league lead, yet remains outside the East wildcard line, showing how thin the margin is. In the West, Anaheim’s 12-3-0 burst since mid-January pulls the Ducks within range despite owning the league’s third-worst goal differential at Thanksgiving. On the flip side, Toronto’s 3-8-2 spiral since Jan. 15 drops the club to 24th, while Los Angeles has already lost 24 home games — equaling the most by any Western team since the shootout arrived.
Olympic Hangover
Coaches quietly blame the compressed Olympic calendar — mid-season best-on-best play followed by an immediate NHL restart — for sluggish stars. MacKinnon and Makar logged heavy minutes in Ottawa, then posted a combined minus-6 in Colorado’s first three games back. Meanwhile, Dallas forwards Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz, neither of whom played in the Games, are a combined plus-9 during the streak. With the trade deadline looming, front offices must decide whether a fresh body outweighs chemistry, aware that one cold week could swap home-ice advantage for a wildcard road trip.
Useful Resources
- NHL Trade Tracker – Real-time updates on every deal completed before the March 7 deadline
- Natural Stat Trick – Advanced 5-on-5 shot and expected-goals data cited by several front offices above
- The Hockey News Magazine Archive – Historical power-ranking methodology and cap-era comparisons
- Central Division Standings – Live points-percentage table updated after each night’s games