Stars eliminate Sharks with 4OT victory

By The Associated Press
The Dallas Stars have finally made it back to the Western Conference finals. It took the eighth longest game in NHL history to do it.

Brenden Morrow scored a power play goal 9:03 into the fourth overtime by deflecting a pass from Stephane Robidas as the Stars eliminated the pesky San Jose Sharks 2-1 in a game that ended early Monday morning - the longest game in the NHL playoffs this season, and the longest in San Jose history.

"Robie made a good, heads-up play, faked the defender down and I was there for an easy one. I shouldn't miss that one," said Morrow, the Stars captain. "At that point of the game, you don't really know what you've got left."

The Stars are going to the conference finals for the first time since 2000, when they returned to the Stanley Cup finals the year after winning the franchise's only championship. They play Game 1 on Thursday night in Detroit, which wrapped up its second-round sweep of Colorado on Thursday night.

After winning the first three games in the series, the Stars finally knocked out the Sharks on the third try and avoided having to go to San Jose for another game. The win came after having two apparent goals by Morrow disallowed following video reviews in Game 5, and Evgeni Nabokov's sensational glove save early in the first overtime of Game 6 - well before midnight.

It was the fourth overtime game in the series, and the fifth game decided by one goal.

"This whole series was a coin flip," Sharks center Jeremy Roenick said.

The deciding game lasted 5 hours, 14 minutes - ending the third-longest in Stars history. They lost the other two, but Morrow made sure that didn't happen again with his seventh goal of the playoffs.

"That was as fitting as anything I've every seen in sports, that Brenden Morrow got the game-winner," coach Dave Tippett said. "It's been a long time since I've seen somebody have a series like that. That's him taking the team on his back and carrying us. Turco was great too."

Marty Turco had a franchise-record 61 saves for the Stars. Nabokov stopped 53 shots, but not the one set up after Brian Campbell was called for tripping Loui Eriksson close to the Dallas net.

"You're trying to battle for a puck. From my point, he started flopping," Campbell said. "I can't do much about it."

Coach Ron Wilson didn't dispute the call.

"Well, it was tripping," Wilson said. "It was a trip, we had to kill it off, and we didn't."

San Jose thought it had a game-winner midway through the third overtime, with Ryane Clowe poking a puck around Turco. Clowe and nearby teammates wearily lifted their arms, but the puck was under the goalie's glove and not in the net. The Sharks even had a power play in the third overtime when Nicklas Grossman was called for hooking, but couldn't convert.

Nabokov's incredible glove save 1:31 into the first overtime kept the game going and prevented a series winner by Brad Richards.

Nabokov made a stab of Richards' one-timer, grabbing the puck with his glove sweeping just inside the post and the puck above the goal line. Referee Tim Peel was behind the net and quickly waved off the goal even though the red light lit up. The play was reviewed by off-ice officials, who determined the puck didn't completely cross the goal line.

Mike Ribeiro had three chances to score in the final 75 seconds of the first overtime. He was rejected on a pair of bang-bang attempts, then with 47 seconds left had another shot that deflected off Nabokov and then the crossbar.

Turco was sprawling out of the crease when he stopped two shots by Sharks captain Patrick Marleau with just over 8 minutes left in the first overtime.

"It's nice to be on this side of it for once," Turco said. "We've had some long ones before. But none of them was more memorable than this one. It was 99 percent fun tonight."

San Jose played in overtime without Milan Michalek, who was face down on the ice when regulation ended after taking a hard hit from Morrow. Michalek, who scored the go-ahead goal in Game 4, had to be helped off the ice and never returned to the bench. He was later shown on TV leaving the locker room with his left arm in a sling.

"We have nothing to hang our heads in shame about. We showed character and kept going," Wilson said. "We were down a player, played overtime without him - a full game with a short bench. Our guys kept going and going and going. We had a ton of chances."

Wilson refused to discuss the injury, saying "it's irrelevant" since the season is over.

After some spectacular saves by Turco, he appeared off-guard when the Sharks got even 1-1 only 1:39 into the third period. Craig Rivet knocked down the puck in the right circle, then Clowe spun and knocked it toward the net. The puck skirted the inside of the right post and went in for Clowe's fifth goal of the playoffs.

At the end of the second period, three Sharks were swarming near the net when Turco pushed away a shot by Jonathan Cheechoo with his stick. That came about a minute after his pad save on a shot by Tomas Plihal.

Antti Miettinen scored on a rebound 4:49 into the second period to give Dallas a 1-0 lead.

Sergei Zubov took a shot that ricocheted off Nabokov, who then collided with Niklas Hagman. There was no whistle, and Nabokov lost his stick in a desperate dive to his right trying to stop Miettinen's putback.

Turco got a break soon after that, when a shot by Pavelski from the side slid through the crease between the posts and the goalie on his back.


Notes
The previous longest game this postseason was Game 4 of the Eastern Conference series between Philadelphia and Washington that lasted 86 minutes, 40 seconds. ... Stars C Stu Barnes missed his third straight game since taking a hard hit to the head in Game 3 on Tuesday night. ... Zubov was in his 108th playoff games for Dallas, the third most in team history behind Mike Modano (167) and Neal Broten (115).

Michalek's goal in 3rd keeps Sharks alive

By The Associated Press
Sharks captain Patrick Marleau thought he had pushed the puck too far ahead. Maybe it was too much to expect another short-handed goal.

Instead, in an eerie replay for the Dallas Stars, Marleau managed to finish the play with a short-handed goal for the second straight game. This one came in Wednesday night's 2-1 victory that kept San Jose from being swept in the Western Conference semifinals.

"He's given us that boost," teammate Joe Pavelski said. "When the puck is chipped out, he's got that extra step that a few guys might not be able to get around the defense."

Like he did in Game 3 on Tuesday, Marleau converted a mistake by Sergie Zubov, this time midway through the second period for a tying goal - right after the Stars missed by inches of taking a 2-0 lead.

"He hasn't played penalty kill all year long," Sharks center Joe Thornton said. "He just has great speed. And obviously when he gets the chance, he's going to put it in the back of the net. That gave our bench a huge lift."

San Jose then finally took advantage of a power play when Milan Michalek scored with 16:34 left.

The Sharks were 0-for-4 on power plays in Game 4 before getting another chance when Mike Modano drew a delay of game penalty for knocking a puck into the stands. Brian Campbell made a cross-ice pass to Thornton, who then pushed the puck back to the front of the net, through the legs of Jonathan Cheechoo and onto Michalek's stick.

"One of the keys to our success has been our discipline. We took a lot of penalties and they capitalized," Stars captain Brenden Morrow said. "It's tough to keep the flow and momentum when you're killing off that many penalties."

Game 5 is Friday night in San Jose, where the Stars won the first two games of the series. The visiting team has won 14 of the past 18 games between the Pacific Division rivals, dating to last season.

The Stars missed a chance for their first postseason series sweep since 1999, when they beat Edmonton in the first round and went on to win the Stanley Cup. Dallas still has three more chances to advance to the Western Conference finals.

Zubov lost the puck near the blue line in the Stars zone, and Marleau charged down the ice and shot the puck past Marty Turco. It was the fourth goal of the playoffs for Marleau, and gave him 24 since 2003-04, matching Calgary's Jarome Iginla for the most during that period.

Marleau's goal came after Brad Richards' shot got past Evgeni Nabokov, but ricocheted off the far upper corner of the goal. That was one of two shots by Dallas during the delayed whistle before the power play that went the wrong way the Stars.

"It's a game of inches, it was close," Richards said. "You'd like to have those chances back but that's not the way it is."

It was only the third game for Zubov after the 15-season veteran and two-time Stanley Cup champion missed three months after operations to place a screw in a bone in his right foot and to repair a sports hernia. He made up for the Game 3 mistake with a tying goal, and after a turnover in Game 2 had the primary assistant on Modano's tiebreaking goal.

But Zubov never amended the latest miscue, which came when the Stars appeared to be ready to put the series away.

"Those are uncharacteristic mistakes by Zubie," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "Those are mistakes that you'd like to see cleaned up."

After San Jose started the second period with five shots in five minutes without getting one past Turco, the Stars capitalized on a mistake by the Sharks.

Devin Setoguchi was behind the net when he tried to clear the puck. Instead the rookie passed it right to the middle of the ice onto the stick of Jere Lehtinen, whose unassisted goal, his third of the playoffs, made it 1-0.

But that was the only goal past Nabokov, who stopped 17 shots. Turco had 22 saves.

San Jose also come out firing to start the game, attacking the net. But Turco spread out to stop a wrister by Michalek and stopped a point-blank wrister by Mike Grier.

On their two power plays in the first 10 minutes, however, the Sharks didn't even got off a shot. It was Dallas that had scoring chances each time it was down a man. Morrow got off a shot during the first power play and Modano, in the penalty box for tripping during the first one, stole the puck off the stick of Christian Ehrhoff from behind and then charged toward the net before Nabokov came out to bury the puck.

The Sharks had another power play before the first intermission, when Matt Niskanen got whistled for slashing. That call came seconds after his hard open-ice collision with Jeremy Roenick knocked the stick out of his hands.

San Jose finally got credited with a shot on goal while on the power play, but it was actually a crossing pass that Turco kicked away.

"We'll embrace the challenge to make history in coming back from a 3-0 deficit," Sharks coach Ron Wilson said. "We've been sitting back too much and not playing Sharks hockey. There were a few blips, but it was a pretty solid effort tonight."


Notes
San Jose avoided being swept for the first time since Detroit beat them in the second round of the 1995 playoffs. ... Stars C Stu Barnes missed the game, a night after taking a hard hit to the head. Tippett said only that Barnes was "feeling the effects" after taking the shot to the head from Cheechoo in the third period of Game 3. He is day to day.

Stars take 3-0 series lead over San Jose

DALLAS (AP)—Mattias Norstrom was the most unlikely scorer on the ice for the Dallas Stars. Still, he took a whack at the puck.

And it went in the net.

Norstrom’s goal 4:37 into overtime Tuesday night gave the Stars a 2-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks and a 3-0 lead in the Western Conference semifinal series.

“I tried to get it on net, it went off a stick. Fortunately, it went in,” said Norstrom, sounding as shocked as anyone about his game-winner.

“He would have been real deep in my depth chart,” captain Brenden Morrow said with a smile.

Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov had already made several impressive saves in overtime, but there were too many bodies around him and he never saw Norstrom’s shot from the top of the left circle after a pass from Mike Ribeiro. The puck slipped through the traffic, clipping Jeremy Roenick’s stick along the way.

It was only the second goal in 47 career playoff games for Norstrom, a 14-season defenseman who has scored only 18 regular-season goals for three NHL teams.

“He just got it over me and it hit my stick,” Roenick said. “It was another bad break. It’s amazing how we can’t get a bounce in this series.”

Sharks captain Patrick Marleau put his team up 1-0 when he scored an unassisted short-handed goal with 35 seconds left in the first period. But he had already been denied a power-play goal because of an inadvertent whistle.

Only 4 minutes into the game, and already on a power play, Marleau jammed a loose puck past Marty Turco. But referee Don VanMassenhoven quickly waved off the score, indicating that he had already blown a whistle.

The referee didn’t realize that the puck still hadn’t been controlled after Joe Thornton’s shot because the ref’s view from behind the net was obstructed by Turco, who was completely extended and on his side after making the initial stop.

“I was surprised the whistle was blown,” Marleau said.

“(The referee) can’t see the puck because he’s standing behind the net,” Sharks coach Ron Wilson said. “The puck’s laying in the crease, he put it in. It should be a goal. He made a mistake, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

The last time the Stars had a 3-0 series lead was in the first round of the 1999 playoffs, when they swept Edmonton and went on to win the Stanley Cup. This is their 16th postseason series since then.

Dallas can wrap up the series Wednesday night at home.

“There’s a lot of momentum right now,” Mike Modano said. “It’ll be a fun night, an elimination game.”

Nabokov stopped 27 shots, including Niklas Hagman’s penalty shot with 9:10 left in regulation when the goalie slid to his left to deny the backhander. Hagman got that opportunity after he was taken down by Christian Ehrhoff skating toward the net with the puck.

In overtime, Nabokov denied Loui Eriksson twice. The second shot by Eriksson came as he tried to knock in the rebound of Brad Richards’ shot that the goalie kicked away.

“There’s no quit in this room. All the games have been pretty close,” Nabokov said. “It’s been little bounces here and there. … We have to regroup and forget these games.”

San Jose had a 2-1 lead heading into the third period of Game 2 before the Stars scored four goals. In the series opener, Norstrom had the primary assist on Morrow's game-winning overtime goal.

Sergei Zubov, whose turnover led to Marleau's short-hander, made amends in the first minute of the third when he scored on a shot from the top of the right circle.

The Stars began the third period on a power play, and 35 seconds later had a two-man advantage when Ehrhoff was whistled for hooking Morrow. On the ensuing goal, Morrow was in front of Nabokov, providing a screen when Zubov took a pass from Ribeiro.

Zubov, the 15-season veteran and two-time Stanley Cup winner, played only his second game since mid-January after operations to place a screw in a bone in his right foot and to repair a sports hernia. He had the primary assist on Modano's tiebreaking goal in Game 2.

But with the Stars on the power play after Thornton's cross-checking penalty, Zubov blindly passed back to an unexpecting Jere Lehtinen. The puck was instead picked up at center ice by Marleau, who drove and shot over Turco's left shoulder.

"I thought for the first two periods we played a perfect road game," Wilson said. "We had some good opportunities and snuffed theirs out. We took at bad penalty at the end of the second period and then we put a gun to our head with that 5-on-3 opportunity, and they converted."


Notes
Dallas has outscored opponents 19-5 in the third period and overtime through nine playoff games. ... The Stars announced during the game that C Steve Ott has signed a new $2.85 million, two-year contract through the 2009-10 season. ... Sharks D Craig Rivet was knocked hard to the ice with 14 minutes left in the third period, when he had a head-to-head collision with teammate Brian Campbell, who was knocked into him after taking an open-ice check from Morrow. Rivet remained down for a couple of minutes, but went to the bench on his own and was soon back in the game. ... The Sharks and Stars were forced to play back-to-back games because the American Airlines Center was already booked for a potential NBA playoff game that won't even be played. The Dallas Mavericks were eliminated from their first-round series with a loss in New Orleans on Tuesday night.

Mike Modano has Beome The All Time American Leader In Goals Scored!

Mike Modano scored two goals to become The All Time American Leader In Goals Scored As Dallas Defeated the San Jose Sharks 3-1.

(NBA Fans, Your Highlights Are below.)