Stars edge Wings 2-1

Wings lead series 3-2

John Kreiser | NHL.com Staff Writer

Marty Turco picked a great time to get his first NHL win at Joe Louis Arena.

Turco stopped 38 shots and used his passing to set up both Dallas goals as the Stars stayed alive in the Western Conference Finals with a 2-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday. Turco had been 0-9-2 at “The Joe” since turning pro in 2000-01. But he was even sharper than he had been Thursday night, when he stopped 33 of 34 shots in a season-extending 3-1 victory in Game 4.

“It was a gutty performance by my team to help me get over the schneid,” Turco said. “This team hasn’t made any excuses for what’s gone wrong. We just weren’t playing well, but now we’re playing a lot better.”

Turco, one of the NHL’s best stickhandling goaltenders, also made the pass that set up Joel Lundqvist’s game-winning goal early in the second period. His long pass found Lundqvist, who beat Chris Osgood to snap a 1-1 tie. Trevor Daley put Dallas ahead midway through the first period — a play that was also started by a pass from Turco. Jiri Hudler tied it for Detroit at 15:30 with a power-play goal.

Turco stopped all 25 shots he faced in the final 40 minutes.

“Any time there’s been any sort of pressure on Marty Turco, he’s always risen,” forward Steve Ott said. “For some reason, when people doubt him, it doesn’t fathom him at all. He never gets too high or too low. Tonight was just another perfect example of Marty being Marty.”

The Wings again had a big margin in shots on goals — they outshot the Stars 39-21 and had 19 other shots that missed the net. But they didn’t appear to have the same zip they’d shown in winning the first three games of the series, especially on offense.

“One of the keys tonight was when we had our quality chances, we missed the net,” Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. “We missed the net 19 times tonight. We had ample opportunity and weren’t able to get it done.”

After back-to-back losses, the Red Wings now have to go back to Dallas for Game 6 on Monday night. If the Stars win, the Wings will host Game 7 on Wednesday. Only two teams — the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and 1975 New York Islanders — have won a best-of-seven series after losing the first three games.

Game 6 has been good to the Stars since the franchise moved to Dallas 15 years ago. They are 10-4 overall, 5-1 in their last six and 2-0 this season — they wrapped up each of their first two series by winning Game 6 at home.

“The pressure’s still not on us,” Ott said. “We’re just going out there and having fun playing a hard-structured game. We’ve proven to ourselves that we belong in this series and we belong in this building. All the nay-sayers that say you can’t win in Detroit — we just proved them wrong.”

The Stars’ franchise also won its first playoff game in Detroit since April 20, 1992 — ending a 10-game losing streak.

“We talked about it before the game, and we just felt that given enough opportunities here, one of these days we’re going to play well and he’s going to stand out and win us a game here,” center Mike Modano said of Turco. “It’s a great thing about sports — you get a lot of second chances and a lot of chances to prove yourself and erase a lot of doubt that anybody has in you. We just felt positive and loose.”

The Wings came out pushing for the early lead, and nearly got it — Turco had to make a great stop 70 seconds into the game when he robbed Daniel Cleary from the slot after a superb setup by Valtteri Filppula. That stop appeared to give Turco a confidence boost.

”It was Marty’s night,” Daley said. ”He was a special player and basically won that game for us.”

Dallas got the game’s first power play at 3:30 when Brad Stuart was called for tripping Mike Ribeiro, who had blocked his shot at the left point and was going in alone. Dallas had one good chance, but Osgood stopped Modano’s backhander from close in after the Michigan native picked up a deflected pass in the slot.

Osgood came up big again seven minutes into the game when he stopped Niklas Hagman from 15 feet inside the left circle a 2-on-1 break.

Though he didn’t get an assist on the play, Turco’s passing ability helped the Stars get on the board first. Turco came out to the circle to his left and made a quick pass to Hagman that caught two Detroit checkers in the Dallas zone. Hagman fed Brad Richards, who carried into the zone and left a drop pass for Daley. He stepped around a checker, moved into the slot and snapped a 20-footer past Osgood at 9:21 for his first goal of the playoffs.

”He’s the best in the game at it,” Daley said of Turco’s passing abilities. ”He’s like a third defenseman because he passes it better than most of us.”

Detroit got its first power play at 10:29 when Modano was called for interfering with Tomas Holmstrom after an offensive-zone faceoff. Detroit controlled the puck for most of the power play but didn’t have a good scoring chance.

But the Wings continued to control the play and forced Dallas into another penalty when Daley was called for interfering with Darren Helm at 13:34 — and this time, the Wings made the Stars pay. Niklas Kronwall put the puck on net from the top of the right circle; Hudler got the rebound, took a step to his left and put the puck into a half-empty net with 4:30 left in the period.

Turco made a big stop with just under three minutes left when he got a pad on Lidstrom’s 20-foot blast from the left circle.

Detroit wound up outshooting Dallas 14-10 in the period and had 11 of the last 14 shots.

The Wings got their third consecutive power play 1:08 into the second when Mattias Norstrom received a slashing penalty for knocking the stick out of Kirk Maltby’s hands. Detroit again controlled the puck for most of the two-minute advantage, but didn’t put much serious pressure on Turco.

Turco’s ability to play the puck helped put the Stars ahead to stay at 6:04. With Detroit on a line change, Turco fired a clearing pass up the middle that deflected off Wings’ forward Darren McCarty and came to Lundqvist, who wound up leading a 2-on-1 break. The twin brother of New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist carried deep into the right circle before ripping a 20-foot wrist shot past Osgood’s glove on the Stars’ first shot of the period.

“Getting an assist on the game-winner doesn’t happen very often,” Turco said. “I’m always looking to help the guys out.”

Seconds later, Turco used his stick to preserve the lead. Pavel Datsyuk outfought the Dallas defense behind the net and fed Holmstrom alone in front, but Turco got his stick on the shot. Holmstrom then gave the Stars a power play when he cross-checked Norstrom in the offensive zone. But Dallas didn’t manage a shot on Osgood during the advantage.

Lundqvist earned the Stars another power-play chance at 14:23 when he deked his way through three Wings and was about to get a shot on Osgood when Hudler slashed him. The Stars patiently worked the puck on the outside before Morrow got off a backhander from in front that forced Osgood to make a fine stop.

The Wings would up outshooting the Stars 13-6 in the middle period and 27-16 through 40 minutes. Turco was outstanding, but he also benefited from Detroit’s inability to find the target — the Wings fired 14 shots that missed the net.

Neither team generated much offense in the first half of the third period. The Wings controlled the tempo, but the Stars were able to fall back and clog their defensive zone, keeping Detroit’s shooters mostly to the outside. Halfway through the period, the Wings had four shots, the Stars just three.

“When they were in lock-down mode, we didn’t get enough people to the net and we didn’t get enough pucks to the net for second chances,” Babcock said.

The Wings turned up the pressure over the next couple of minutes, but were slowed by a roughing penalty against Holmstrom, who took a poke at someone on the Stars’ bench as he was heading off for a chance and was penalized at 12:11. Osgood had to make a good stop on Hagman’s rip from the right circle, and the Wings got a break with 6:11 left in regulation when Morrow split the defense and beat Osgood but put a shot off the crossbar.

Now, instead of getting a few days off at home before the Stanley Cup Final, the Wings will have to get on a plane and try to advance with a victory in Dallas.

“No one wanted to go back to Dallas, but I don’t think anybody thought when we started this series that it was going to be easy,” Babcock said. “The Stanley Cup Playoffs aren’t supposed to be easy.”

Source: NHL.com