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DALLAS — They needed a good early push — and got it. For the first seven or so minutes of play, or until the first television timeout, the Dallas Stars didn't surrender a single shot on goal and had the Detroit Red Wings on their heels for a time.
They needed a little puck luck around the net — and got it, from Brad Richards, early in the second period, when his harmless centring pass from the side boards caromed off a skate and past goaltender Chris Osgood.
For all of that, the Stars couldn't find the formula to defeat what is turning into an unstoppable Detroit Red Wings juggernaut in these NHL playoffs. The Red Wings won their ninth consecutive playoff game, a 5-2 decision over the Stars and took a 3-0 stranglehold lead on their best-of-seven Western Conference final. The Red Wings can advance to their first Stanley Cup final in six years with a win in the fourth game tomorrow night.
The lesson last night: It doesn't take much for Detroit to turn nothing into something. The Red Wings received three goals from the brilliant, mercurial Pavel Datsyuk, along with a back-breaking third-period short-handed goal from Henrik Zetterberg, to engineer the victory.
Detroit Red Wings forward Pavel Datsyuk celebrates his third goal of the game during the third period of play against the Dallas Stars Monday night. (Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters)
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"Those two are a rare couple of players," Stars coach Dave Tippett said in admiration of the Red Wings' scoring stars. "They're just making plays. Can we defend them better? Sure, we'd love to defend them better. But they're making plays that are counting and that was the difference in the game, for sure."
Zetterberg's goal was particularly significant, in that it came with the Stars down by one and on the power play for the fifth time. But Zetterberg picked off an errant pass deep inside his own zone and went coast to coast, eventually turning Richards inside out with a little dipsy-doodle magic before moving across the crease and burying his shot past Stars goaltender Marty Turco. Richards was a forward manning the point position on the power play, which Zetterberg was smart enough to sense and take advantage of.
"In that situation, Z knew what he had," Red Wings forward Kris Draper said. "He made an unbelievable move and showed unbelievable patience. It was a big goal for our hockey club — a power play to start the third period for Dallas and we end up getting a short-handed goal, a highlight short-handed goal. The way those guys are playing is just unreal."
Datsyuk doesn't say much himself, but defenceman Nicklas Lidstrom suggested he doesn't get enough credit for taking the puck hard to the net.
"His hand-eye co-ordination and his skill is so high, even though it looks like he's losing the puck, he still has his stick on it and finds a way to get by the defencemen," Lidstrom said. "He's so shifty when you try to stand up on him or play the body, he can move around you. He's so tough to defend when he's playing like that."
Jiri Hudler scored the other goal for Detroit, while Niklas Grossman's first career playoff goal accounted for the rest of the Dallas offence.
So Dallas finds itself in the same position that the Colorado Avalanche did in the previous round — facing the possibility of getting swept by a Red Wings team that is giving nothing away defensively.
Injuries eventually took their toll on Colorado.
Dallas, meanwhile, looks as though it is running out of gas and bodies. Jere Lehtinen didn't play because of a leg injury, nor did Stu Barnes, the Stars' best faceoff man, out with concussion-like symptoms. Brenden Morrow, their heart-and-soul leader, gave it his all again, but he looks as though he's on fumes, too, worn out by four overtime games in the previous round, including the final game, a quadruple-overtime thriller and what looks like a possible groin injury.
"Right now, it's hard to have any mindset," Richards said. "We're pretty disappointed with this loss. We'll wake up tomorrow and we're still in this series. We'll go from there and try to win a game, but obviously right now, I'm not going to lie to you. It's very disappointing."
Hudler also contributed a timely goal for Detroit on a clear breakaway just past the midpoint of the second period, which stood up as the winner.
On the play, diminutive Hudler was loitering behind the Stars' defence just outside the Dallas blueline, where Niklas Kronwall spotted him. Hudler was all alone.
Hudler was facing Kronwall when he took the pass and almost fell as he turned to go in on Turco. But Hudler managed to keep his balance and still fend off the Stars' hard-charging defender, Stéphane Robidas, all the while lifting a backhand high to Turco's glove side.
"They're causing us to do things we don't want to do," Richards said. "That's what they're good at. … Sometimes, we're just not smart in situations. We tie it up twice and they go down to score and take the lead again. It's tough to do over and over again against a team like that."
The goal by Hudler atoned for an earlier first-period shift in which he and his linemates were hemmed in the Red Wings' zone for the better part of two minutes and eventually surrendered the Stars' first goal.
At one stage, they were able to ice the puck, but that meant they couldn't change lines or defence pairs. Head Coach Mike Babcock, sensing the danger, called a timeout to rest the five, but it didn't work. A fresh collection of Stars kept the cycle alive and, eventually, Mike Modano worked the puck to Grossman, who came charging in from the right point to bang it past Osgood.
It took just 37 seconds for the Red Wings to get that back, however, on Datsyuk's second, a backhander along the ice that somehow slipped between Turco's legs.
The Stars opened the second period with a two-minute power play, after Kirk Maltby received an interference penalty at the buzzer. Dallas had great puck possession but couldn't get anything to go — Morrow fanned on one attempt, Antti Miettinen missed from in tight on another.
Maybe it was fitting then that when Richards finally scored, it came on a fluke — a shot off Brad Stuart's left foot that changed direction and fooled Osgood.
That looked like the sort of break Dallas needed, or it did until Hudler stopped the Stars' momentum cold with his breakaway goal.
