Saturday, April 19, 2008

Anaheim Ducks 5, Dallas Stars 2

By Mark Stepneski of Andrew's Stars Page

Heading into Game 5 the Dallas Stars had three chances to win one game and take out the Anaheim Ducks in their first round playoff series. Now it's down to two. The Stars had their chances but couldn't take advantage and the Ducks made the most of theirs, winning 5-2 at the Honda Center to force a sixth game in the series.

"We can't be thinking in the back of our minds that we have a couple more chances," said Stars center Brad Richards. "We have to match the desperation and that's how you finish off a playoff series."

The Stars, who still hold a 3-2 lead in the series, will get a chance to finish off the series Sunday at the American Airlines Center. If necessary, Game 7 would be in Anaheim on Tuesday.

"We would have loved to have closed it out tonight but we gave them too many chances," Turco said. "We'll just have to do it at home. They are a dangerous team and we definitely don't take anything for granted."

Facing elimination the Ducks rode some great goaltending by Jean-Sebastien Giguere and got goals from their big guns to live another day in the series. Giguere stopped 40 shots in the game and Teemu Selanne, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry were among the goal scorers for the Ducks.

"I felt really good tonight," said Giguere. "My job is just to try to give the team a chance to win. If I do that, I feel like we have the guys up front that can score some goals and we did that tonight."

Said Ducks coach Randy Carlyle: "I thought Giguere was the best player on the ice tonight."

Mattias Norstrom and Mike Ribeiro scored goals for Dallas. Turco, who made several spectacular stops in the game, ended up with 27 saves.

The Ducks, who had fallen behind in the series because of poor special teams play, won the battle on this night. They scored twice on the power play and held the Stars scoreless on seven chances, although Dallas did score just one second after one of their chances expired.

"We could have easily taken ourselves right out of the game without the effort of our penalty killers and our goaltending," said Carlyle.

There were 29 combined shots in the first period and both goalies were superb. Turco had great stops on Teemu Selanne, Chris Kunitz, Brad May and a brilliant sprawling stick save on Selanne wrap-around attempt. Giguere made big stops on Brad Richards and Stu Barnes. But each team got one goal in the net in the first period.

Just after he came out of the penalty box, Ducks forward Corey Perry skated down the right wing and beat Turco with a wrist shot at 8:25 to give the Ducks the early lead.

But the Stars struck late in the period to tie. Just after their third period expired, Richards sent a cross-ice pass to a pinching Norstrom, who roofed a shot over Giguere's shoulder with 1:33 remaining to make it a 1-1 game heading into the first intermission.

The Stars missed on their fourth and fifth power play chances of the game early in the second period and the Ducks finally got their first power play chance midway through the second and scored to take the lead. Ryan Getzlaf beat Turco with a perfectly placed shot from the left faceoff circle at the 11:03 mark.

The Stars had some great chances in the second period, but couldn't get a puck past Giguere. Loui Eriksson was denied by Giguere and had another shot go off the post. Giguere made a great stop a on blast from the slot by Antti Miettinen and then moments later Niklas Hagman shot wide when trying to fire into the open side of the net.

The Ducks extended the lead to 3-1 just 48 seconds with a five-on-three power play goal. With Matt Niskanen and Trevor Daley in the penalty box, Selanne grabbed the rebound of a Chris Pronger blast that hit the endboards and knocked it into the net.

Ribeiro pulled the Stars within one at the 4:14 mark when he came out from the behind the net, spun around and slid a puck under a scrambling Giguere.

But the Ducks were able to get that two goal lead back with 7:55 left in the game when Chris Kunitz sent a pass from behind the net defenseman Sean O'Donnell, who scored from the left circle.

Todd Marchant's empty net goal with 1:24 rounded out the scoring for the Ducks, who won at home for the first time in the series.

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