Anaheim Ducks 2, Dallas Stars 1

by Mark Stepneski of of Andrew's Stars Page

DALLAS — The Dallas Stars' bumpy ride through the month of March continued Wednesday night. Todd Bertuzzi's power play goal with 27.2 seconds left in the game lifted the Anaheim Ducks to a 2-1 win over the Stars at the American Airlines Center Wednesday night.

The loss was the third straight for the Stars and their sixth in the last seven games, leaving three points behind second place Anaheim in the Pacific Division and eight points behind division leading San Jose.

The Ducks, winners of three straight games, currently hold the fourth seed in the Western Conference and would get home ice advantage over the currently fifth seeded Stars if the two teams were to meet in the first round of the playoffs.

"The time is now to get the work boots back on and realize we are in a dogfight," said Stars captain Brenden Morrow. "We've got to work ourselves out of this hole."

The Stars, whose power play was key in their winning five of six games against Anaheim coming into Wednesday night, came up short on this night. Dallas was 0-7 on the power play and missed on a key 4:00 minute chance in the third period with the score tied 1-1.

"Our execution wasn't very good on it," said Stars coach Dave Tippett of the power play, which was able to get just two shots on its seven chances in the game. "That's a slap in the face for our power play. We've got to get back to work."

The Ducks scored twice on the power play in the game, including the game-winner with less than 30 seconds remaining. After Morrow was penalized for interfering with Bertuzzi in the neutral zone, the Ducks went on a power play with 1:13 to go and Bertuzzi took a pass from Ryan Getzlaf, skated to the bottom of the right circle and lifted a backhand shot that bounced off Stars goalie Marty Turco and over the goal line.

"It was a shot at the net from a bad angle. I got a piece of it, lost it and it went in," said Turco. "You'd like to have one like that back, but you can't. I always try to give my teammates to win and I thought I was doing that, but that's a save that needs to be made."

Said Bertuzzi: "I didn't have a lot of time. I just wanted to get it there as fast as possible."

Morrow wasn't happy with the call that led to that final Ducks' power play.

"I don't agree with it," Morrow said. "It's a judgment call, they've got a tough job to do. The last minute of the game I'd like to see something a little more obvious that that. I think both teams thought the officiating wasn't as consistent as they would have liked."

The Stars missed on their first power play chance of the game, but they did cash in on the Ducks' first chance with the man-advantage. After Turco wrapped the puck around the boards, it hopped past Anaheim defenseman Mathieu Schneider at the left point, giving Morrow a breakaway and the Dallas captain beat Ducks goalie J-S Giguere five-hole with a wrist shot at 12:44 to put the Stars up 1-0.

The Ducks were able to draw even on their second power play chance early in the second period. After Getzlaf won a faceoff in the offensive zone, Teemu Selanne sent the puck to Scott Niedermayer's shot from the left point beat Turco, who was screened by Bertuzzi.

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