Dallas Stars Vs Detroit Red Wings Preview

As a Dallas Stars fan for many years and an Eddie Belfour fan for my whole life, I have nothing but contempt for the Red Wings. My contempt for them caused me to hate Derian Hatcher and Brett Hull, two of the most important pieces of the ‘99 Cup run. I could write prose on just my pure hatred for the Red Wings, but you have to respect them. They aren’t dirty, by hockey standards, they aren’t too pretty, they just play the game the right way, and they are very good at it. 3 Cups in the last 12 years should tell you all you need to know. They have been the best team in the NHL from the beginning to the end this year. If that does not sound ominous enough, historically they own the Stars. The Stars have never beaten the Red Wings in a playoff series. All of that means nothing because hockey, more than any other sport, a seven game series any team can beat anybody. Marty Turco is 2-10-5 for his career against the Red Wings… (wow).

This Stars team is different, Marty Turco is different. This Stars team can play with speed or with physicality. This Stars team plays with all the fire and heart of their captain. However, this Stars team has not played a team like Detroit in these playoffs. They are a true puck possession team, and in previous seasons we could not counteract that. Now we have three lines that can fore check and score, and 6 defensemen that can all skate and move the puck. Hell they have 8 defensemen who can do that. So here is the breakdown.

Offense: Red Wings, hands down they had one guy score more than an entire team last series (Franzen had 9 goals while the Avalanche had 8 ) and he is not on their first line. Datsyuk and Zetterberg are two of the top 10 players in all the league, in my opinion they are both top 5. They are the headliners of a team that scored the third most goals per game in the regular season.

Defense: Even, the First four of the Red Wings is marginally better than the Stars but at 6 deep it is even. Detroit allowed the fewest goals in the regular season and the Stars were sixth, but the Stars were without Zubov and Boucher for significant time this season. For Detroit Nick Lidstrum is widely regarded as the best defensemen in the NHL, and I won’t argue. Brian Rafalski is solid, and you better keep your head up when Niklas Kronwall is on the ice, he’s a headhunter.

Special Teams: They are very alike in how they do things, they have guys who can play pretty and dust the puck off (Ribeiro Modano Zubov, and Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Lidstrum) and the grit guys in front of the net (Holmstrom for the Red Wings and Morrow for the Stars) .

Goaltending: Stars, Turco has been just spectacular so far in these playoffs. However, his history against the Red Wings scare me. Osgood is good but has not really been tested in these playoffs. Unfortunately the way the Red Wings play negates one of Marty’s strengths, his puck play.

I am picking the Stars in seven because I believe in Morrow and Turco. No other reason, the Red Wings have the better team 5 on 5 on paper but the Stars have the better goalie and this Red Wings team has never won Lord Stanley’s Cup. The growth that the Stars have gone through in the playoffs, and the chemistry the Stars have right now make me think this series will come down to one game, in Detroit.

Stars Can’t Close Off to San Jose for Game 5

Stars lost tonight in a game that looked simply like the Sharks wanted it more, I do not really see this as a reason to be worried. I am in no way saying the Stars did not want to win the game, they wanted to win it but they had played three games in four nights and won the first two. Both teams came in to the game tired so the extra energy went on the side of the team with their backs to the wall. With all their pride carrying them, their coaches job on the line, and some of them their careers in San Jose, they came out faster and hungrier than the Stars. These are evenly matched teams and the bounces went the way of the team that earned them tonight.

Some thoughts, Turco was outstanding again, especially in the third period. He made some big time saves early in that period to give the Stars a chance but after 6 big time saves, he let one in. Still I have no complaints about Turco. I felt we did not test Nabokov nearly enough, he looked really shaky in San Jose and we only got 18 shots against him. As the Sturminator likes to say, “they dominated field position” however the reason why they did this was in the faceoff circle. It really seemed like the Sharks won all the big faceoffs tonight. The numbers were about even but when the Sharks needed to sustain pressure they won a lot of the big draws, while we did not especially on the powerplay. It seemed like they won a lot of the draws on both their penalty kill and ours.  That might have been where the presence of Stu Barnes would have been mostly missed.  Maybe he could have won a few draws on the penalty kill.  Hell he would have been the one on the ice instead of Toby Peterson on that last penalty kill where the Sharks took the decisive lead.  With all of that I still felt the real difference was the fact that they stayed out of the penalty box and we did not in the third period.

Secondly, I love Sergei and I will always bow down to his greatness but he was not good at all tonight, and I do not mean because he made that one mistake, I am ok with that mistake from Zubie. Hes like Flozelle Adams, you know Flozelle is going to false start one play a game but you accept that because he keeps Romo’s jersey clean at a pro bowl level. I felt Zubie was just slow tonight, he got beat alot on just flat out speed. Thats what worries me, he got beat in his first game back too, he took a hooking penalty in the first period of game 2 because he was slow and a guy flew right by him. However, if Tippet(who needs to bring back the mustache) plays him another 25 to 30 minutes on Friday I won’t complain. I will only critique how he plays because I trust Zubie to be on the ice. I want him on the ice.

On a positive note, I thought Niskanen has put together two back to back solid performances. He has not made any glaring errors in my account and he saved a goal on a wrap around in game 3 and he made the outlet pass that sprung Hagman that earned him his penalty shot.

I think the Stars will win game 5 because it will be close, the Stars will be as hungry as the Sharks and it will come down to the goaltenders. If it comes down to that I take Marty any day.