Radek Faksa had a goal and two assists, and John Klingberg and Roope Hintz each added a goal and an assist, as the Dallas Stars took a 3-1 lead over the Colorado Avalanche in their best-of-seven series, coming away with a 5-4 victory on Sunday night in the second round of the Western Conference playoffs at Rogers Place in Edmonton.

Denis Gurianov and Jamie Benn also scored goals and Anton Khudobin finished with 33 saves for Dallas, which can clinch a spot in the Western Conference finals with a win in Game 5 on Monday night.

Valeri Nichushkin scored two goals, Cale Makar had a goal and an assist and Vladislav Namestnikov also scored a goal for Colorado. Andre Burakovsky and Samuel Girard each had two assists and Nathan MacKinnon also had an assist, extending his team record to 12 straight playoff games with a point.

Pavel Francouz had 21 saves before being pulled with 11:58 remaining in the third period. Michael Hutchinson had three saves in his NHL playoff debut.

Dallas dominated the first period while building a 3-0 lead, holding the Avalanche without a shot for the first 18:26 in the process.

Klingberg started the scoring with his second goal of the playoffs, tapping in a rebound of a Faksa shot that Francouz failed to cover up with his glove.

Faksa made it 2-0 just 2:15 later with a power-play goal, finding a loose puck in the low slot and then backhanding it past Francouz's blocker side for his third goal of the playoffs.

Benn then scored the third goal a little over four minutes later with another power-play goal, redirecting Alexander Radulov's shot from the left point under Francouz's glove for his fourth goal of the playoff.

Colorado cut it to 3-1 at the 13:24 mark of the second period on Nichushkin's first playoff goal, smacking in a rebound of a Makar shot under Khudobin's right pad.

The Avalanche made it 3-2 with a 5-on-3 goal just before the end of the period after Jamie Oleksiak (interference) and Blake Comeau (hooking) drew penalties on the same play. It took Makar only 11 seconds to score on a snap shot from the bottom of the left circle off a crossing pass from MacKinnon.

Dallas then regained control with two goals in the span of 32 seconds in the third, the first on Hintz's shot from the high slot on the power play past Francouz's glove side, and the second after Makar mishandled the puck that trickled in front of the goal where Gurianov knocked it in for his eighth of the playoffs.

Nichushkin cut it to 5-3 with 8:36 left when his snap shot from the right circle clanged in off the far post. Colorado pulled Hutchinson with 3:00 left and Namestnikov scored with just 3.6 seconds left.

--Field Level Media