Friday, April 18, 2008

Dallas Stars 3, Anaheim Ducks 1

By Mark Stepneski of Andrew's Stars Page

DALLAS — The Dallas Stars didn't need their power play Thursday night to beat the Anaheim Ducks at the American Airlines Center. They got a stellar performance from Marty Turco in net and made the most of their opportunities to beat the Ducks 3-1 and take a 3-1 lead in their best-of-seven series. The Stars will get a chance to close out the series Friday night in Anaheim.

Turco stopped 28 of 29 shots and appeared headed for his second shutout of the playoffs, but lost it when the Ducks scored with less than ten seconds left in the game.

"He had a wonderful performance," said Star coach Dave Tippett. "I think everybody knows he has to be very good for our team to be very good, and he was excellent tonight."

Turco has stopped 82 of 89 shots in the series for a save percentage of .921.

"Tonight I felt really good,'' Turco said. "I had an opportunity to see all the shots that came my way. There were some anxious, scrambly moments in the second period. But the guys were doing all they could to help me.''

Joel Lundqvist, Stu Barnes and Steve Ott scored goals for the Stars, who won at home for only the second time in their last nine playoff games.

"Everybody wanted to come out strong after the other night," Barnes said. "We played better all around and got an early goal. The defense did a great job holding them off and Marty was great. We have to play complete games and not give Anaheim anything. We need to make sure we're at our best tomorrow night."

Lundqvist's goal late in the first period gave the Stars the lead and the game stayed 1-0 until midway through the third period when Barnes extended the lead with a breakaway that was set up by a long pass by Mike Modano.

The Ducks are left with the daunting task of overcoming a 3-1 deficit, something that has been done only by 20 of the 219 teams that have faced the challenge in Stanley Cup Playoff history. They'll have to regroup quickly with next game coming on Friday.

"We knew the schedule was coming and unfortunately we have to play back-to-back," Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle said. "We understand the situation and we have to win the next hockey game. We have to give ourselves a chance."

The Stars opened the scoring at 16:39 of the first period when Ducks defenseman Sean O'Donnell fired a pass right into the middle that Stars forward Loui Eriksson picked off and backhanded to Lundqvist, who ripped a shot past Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

"It was an unfortunate play, and I'll have to look at it again," O'Donnell said. "I saw Teemu there, and from the read that I had the guy had his back to me. I thought I could snap it real fast to Teemu. I don't know if he turned around to hit it or maybe it was an unfortunate bounce. That first goal put us on our heels a little bit. I would like to have that one back."

The Stars could have been up by more after the first period. They had a Trevor Daley goal waved off earlier because of a goalie interference call on Niklas Hagman, and an Eriksson point blank chance at an open net hit off Ducks center Sami Pahlsson and went wide towards the end of the period.

The Ducks had a goal waved off in the second period when video review showed that Brian Sutherby kicked in the rebound of a Todd Bertuzzi wraparound attempt at the 8:00 mark.

The Stars put the game away with two goals in the third period. Mike Modano set up Barnes on a breakaway at 9:01 of the third period and Barnes beat Giguere five-hole to extend the Stars' lead to 2-0.

"Just a good play by Mike Modano, I kind of snuck behind everybody and he found me,” Barnes said. "Great play by him."

Barnes stole the puck from Ducks defenseman Kent Huskins in the neutral zone and set up Ott on a two-on-one with 2:43 left to make a 3-0 lead.

Turco lost his shutout bid with eight seconds left in the game when Ducks defenseman Mathieu Schneider scored a goal on a wrist shot from between the circles.

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