Saturday, May 17, 2008

Dallas Stars 2, Detroit Red Wings 1

By Mark Stepneski of Andrew's Stars Page

Stars goalie Marty Turco's woes at The Joe officially came to an end on May 17, 2008. Turco stopped 38 shots and assisted on Joel Lundqvist's game winning goal as the Stars beat the Detroit Red Wings 2-1, forcing a Game 6 in Dallas Monday night.

"What a gutty performance by my team to help me get over the schneid," Turco told NBC Sports after the game. "It was a great effort. It was a great game."

"One of our themes all year is find a way to win and have the will to win and I think Marty exemplified that tonight," said Stars coach Dave Tippett. "He wasn't going to be denied in this game and he made enough saves for us to get a win."

Said Stars captain Brenden Morrow: "He's given us a chance to win every night. Unfortunately it's a team sport and we haven't been there for him sometimes. He's going to get the brunt of the blame. We're all in it together. Tonight we all pulled through."

Turco, who won for the first time in 12 decisions in Detroit, played a role in both Dallas goals, including Lundqvist game-winner at 6:04 of the second period. His pass up the middle of the ice was deflected, went to Lundqvist who skated into the Detroit zone on a two-on-rush and scored the goal that gave the Stars a 2-1 lead that would hold up for the rest of the game.

"I hit some guys long," Turco said of his puck moving in the game. "An assist on the game-winner, that doesn't happen often."

Trevor Daley also scored for the Stars, who won a playoff game in Detroit for the first time since April 20, 1992 and snapped a ten-game playoff losing streak in Detroit.

The Red Wings, who outshot the Stars 39-21, were only able to get a power play goal by Jiri Hudler past Turco and have only scored one goal in each of the last two games.

"I thought tonight one of the key's for us when we had our quality chances we missed the net," said Babcock. "We missed the net 19 times and had ample opportunity and weren't able to get it done.

"The other thing I thought is, when they were in lockdown mode, we didn't get enough people to the net and enough pucks to the net for second chances."

There were a lot of great chances in the first period and both Turco and Detroit goalie Chris Osgood were sharp. Turco stopped Dan Cleary early in the game to keep the Wings off the board and Osgood made some nice saves at the other end, including a nice stop on a deflection and a save on a Mike Modano power play chance from close range.

The Stars struck for the first goal at 9:21 when Turco made a nice play to move the puck up the ice to start his team on the rush and Brad Richards made a nice drop pass between his legs to Daley , who whipped the puck past Osgood to make it a 1-0 game.

"I closed my eyes and it went in," Daley joked about his goal.

Detroit had two power play chances after that, and scored on the second one to tie the game with 4:30 left in the first. After Turco made a spectacular stop on a Jiri Hudler redirection of a Niklas Kronwall pass, Hudler got the rebound and put it pas a sprawling Turco to make it a 1-1 score.

After killing off Detroit's third power play of the game early in the second period, the Stars got the lead back at 6:04 of the period when Turco moved the puck up ice to put the Stars on a two-on-one rush and Lundqvist scored from the right circle to make a 2-1 game.

The Red Wings outshot the Stars 12-5 in the third, but couldn't get the equalizer against Turco. The Stars came close to extending their lead on a power play, but Brenden Morrow's shot hit the crossbar on a partial breakaway.

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Comments

TJ Callaway Verified

Woohoo!! Go Stars!!!

2 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )