Carrying a 1-0 lead into the final period, the Dallas Stars extended it on Stu Barnes 29th career playoff goal. After collecting a nice lead pass from Mike Modano at the Anaheim Ducks blue line, Barnes raced in on a breakaway against Ducks goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere, firing a quick wrist shot from the slot through Giguere’s pads.
“Just a good play by Mike Modano, I kind of snuck behind everybody and he found me,” Barnes said. “Great play by him.”
The Stars put the stake through the Ducks’ heart with 2:43 to go when Barnes stole the puck in the neutral zone and sped back into the Anaheim zone with it. Carrying into the right face-off circle, Barnes fed a charging Ott at the lip of the crease, and Steve Ott re-directed it past Giguere for his second goal of the playoffs and a 3-0 lead.
Dallas got the all-important opening goal with 3:21 left in the opening period, after an egregious turnover by the Ducks in their own zone. After Loui Eriksson intercepted Sean O’Donnell’s clearing attempt in the high slot, Eriksson batted the puck to a wide open Joel Lundqvist in front and Lundqvist fired a quick wrist shot over Giguere’s shoulder for the 1-0 lead.
The Ducks then snapped Marty Turco’s shutout bid with just 7.6 seconds on the clock, after Mathieu Schneider ripped a wrist shot from the high slot that beat a screened Turco just inside the far post.
“Marty was excellent and we scored a few goals for him and we need to battle like this again tomorrow night,” Stars coach Dave Tippett said. “Marty is going to have to be really good for us to be successful and you saw him really good tonight.”
“I think the fans said it all with the chants of ‘Marty, Marty, Marty.’ He’s definitely been our first star the whole season,” Ott said of Turco. “His play in the playoffs has been spectacular.”
As exciting as it is to be up 2-0 on Anaheim entering Tuesday’s Game 3 in Dallas, a series victory is far from guaranteed. These are the defending Stanley Cup champions, remember? And despite the bold statement on one local newscast yesterday that the Stars had moved “one step closer to a Stanley Cup” (yes, with just 14 wins to go), this series is far from over.
It could get much closer to finality, however, with a Game 3 victory. No, it’s not over. But the Stars could at least give the fat lady reason to start warming up with another win on Tuesday.
The reasons for the Stars’ epically dominant performance so far in this opening round are many, with multiple contributors deserving credit for Dallas sweeping the league’s second best home team on their own ice in Games 1 and 2. And it’s that same, across-the-board contribution that will be necessary to suck the last breath out of a Ducks team that should come out Tuesday with an increased level of desperation.
Reason 1: Marty Turco has been better than Jean-Sebastien Giguere. Significantly better. Way, way better. Like Shiner Bock is better than Coors Light better.
Yeah, that much better.
Reason 1A: Dallas’ top line of Mike Ribeiro, Brenden Morrow and Jere Lehtinen has been unstoppable. In fact, this trio has completely dominated a team that boasts the best blueline in the NHL, and arguably one of the best of all time, the entire season. Through 10 regular season and playoff games combined, that group has combined for 35 points.
Ribeiro is leading the way with five points in two games. Morrow was the best player on the ice in Game 1, registering a goal and two assists and handing out significant bruises with his fierce hitting. All Lehtinen has done is average one power-play goal per game, and has now scored 10 points in just eight games against Anaheim this season.
Reason 2: The Stars’ depth down the middle.
With the Ducks throwing their checking line and their top defensive pair against Ribeiro and company, that leaves 2004 Conn Smythe Trophy winner Brad Richards playing against a lesser d-pair and forward line, and puts Mike Modano, the franchise’s all-time leading scorer, against a third defensive pair.
Reason 3: The best defensive corps in the NHL hasn’t been the best defensive corps in this series.
Let’s be honest … this Dallas defensive unit, without Sergei Zubov, entered the postseason with 126 combined playoff games played and zero Stanley Cup championships. The other blueline entered this series with 590 career playoff games and 10 combined Stanley Cups among its top seven. In fact, Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer each have more playoff games alone than Dallas’ current top six has to its credit combined.
The Dallas Stars match-up with the Anaheim Ducks in the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs Western Conference Quarterfinals. The Stars are the number five seed in the Western Conference while the Ducks are the number four seed. The series will start in Anaheim and be a best of seven games series, played in a 2-2-1-1-1- format.
The Stars won the regular season series 5-3.
Stars coach Dave Tippett expects to have Mike Ribeiro (flu) and Jere Lehtinen (flu) back. Steve Ott had the flu Friday and returned to play in Sunday's game. But, can they recover from the loss of Sergei Zubov to injury?
The Stars enter this series with questions at goalie as well. Can Marty Turco win big in the playoffs? Can he steal one along the way?
One and done is becoming an all-too-familiar phrase for Marty Turco and the Stars. From 2002 to 2007, Turco ranked in the top 10 in goals-against average and save percentage four times. In three of those four seasons, the Stars were booted from the postseason in the first round.
Only in the 2006-07 postseason did Turco rise to the level of his regular-season play. But despite three shutout wins, the Stars were outscored by the Vancouver Canucks, 13-12.
Ultimately, the Stars need more than great numbers from Turco. They need a first-round victory.
With smoke in the air from all the wild fires still burning in southern California, the Los Angeles Kings outlasted the Dallas Stars for the first time since April 2006 on Thursday night October 25th at the Staples Center. A third period goal from Alexander Frolov snapped a 1-1 tie. With Dallas fortunate to be tied after two periods, the Kings finally took the lead early in the third on Frolov’s third goal of the season just 1:40 in. Derek Armstrong slid a no-look, behind-the-back pass out of the right corner to Frolov cutting through the right face-off circle, and the Russian winger blasted a one-timer past Marty Turco to give the Kings the 2-1 win.
For most of us, whenever we travel by plane, we fly on commercial airlines, sit in cramped coach seats (possibly with a small, whiny child kicking the seat behind us), are subject to the whims of airport delays, and are usually lucky to get anything to eat beyond a tiny bag of pretzels or peanuts. That is not how the Dallas Stars travel, especially not after owner Tom Hicks just upgraded their private plane from a 727 to a new Boeing 757 twin-engine jetliner. The Stars took the inaugural flight on the new plane when they lifted off Tuesday afternoon from Love Field for a trip to Los Angeles ahead of their date Thursday night against the Kings (9:30 pm, my27, News/Talk 820 WBAP).
It can accommodate up to 71 total passengers, includes 24 fully-reclining, 360-degree swiveling sleeper seats for the players, and has 47 other first-class seats located in three other sections throughout the plane. The new 757, which will be utilized by both the Stars and the Texas Rangers baseball team, also features an upgraded video entertainment system and an iPod docking station that allows passengers to play movies from a lap-top, iPod or DVD player in each section. There are also two electrical outlets and phone jacks at each seat, a bar in the back, as well as a comfortable four-seat couch.
For a team that will fly approximately 112 total hours in the air over the course of the regular season and which will have 16 flights where the club returns to Dallas immediately after a night game, traveling in such luxurious conditions can only help.
“I think that, certainly with the travel that we do, that any advantage that we give our players is going to benefit us in the long term,” said Stars General Manager Doug Armstrong. “We probably travel more than anyone in the NHL right now, and to have a plane like this and to have the seating where the players can recline, it’s going to really enhance our travel and make things a lot better for us. And I think there will be a competitive advantage, not only to our team, but also in acquiring free agents.”
“It’s great,” added center Mike Modano. “It’s just getting rest and being able to get from point A to point B as easy as possible, it doesn’t come easier than this. Comfort, ability to spread out, you’re not packed in on each other, it helps. Our travel’s not the best here, so however we can get the upper hand here, it helps.”
While the advantage of more comfortable accommodations might not be felt immediately, the players believe it will help and might possibly translate into better performance on the ice at some point.
“It’s tough to put down in x’s and o’s and say yes or no, but it won’t hurt,” goaltender Marty Turco said. “It certainly won’t hurt our chances of feeling better when we get there. It’s a luxury that we have had before, traveling as well as we do, but this just kind of sets precedent for pro sports teams to give us every advantage possible, when you have an owner like Mr. Hicks, who does what he can, it just makes you feel good and lets you worry about less things and concentrate more on what we do.”
“Especially with us, we have so much travel because of our division, it adds practice time, it adds time that other teams have without the same travel, so any time we can keep the players fresh, it’s wonderful,” coach Dave Tippett noted. “It’s a beautiful plane. It makes everything a lot easier to travel. We’re very fortunate to have an owner that believes that he wants to do everything possible for the players to give them the best opportunity to be successful, so it’s a wonderful little perk for us.”
While the Stars did fly pretty nicely before, the upgrade from a 727 to a 757 gives them better fuel efficiency and lower noise levels (inside the plane and out), and allows for longer individual flights (from a maximum 2500 miles to 4000 miles). Also, the 727 could only hold up to 54 passengers, while their limit is now 71, something that made possible the extra wrinkle on Tuesday where the players’ wives joined them on the trip to LA.
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“Just a good play by Mike Modano, I kind of snuck behind everybody and he found me,” Barnes said. “Great play by him.”
“Marty was excellent and we scored a few goals for him and we need to battle like this again tomorrow night,” Stars coach Dave Tippett said. “Marty is going to have to be really good for us to be successful and you saw him really good tonight.”
With the Ducks throwing their checking line and their top defensive pair against Ribeiro and company, that leaves 2004 Conn Smythe Trophy winner 
