Wednesday April 22 7:30pm The league's best team in the regular season -- the Dallas Stars -- have an opportunity to prove that was no fluke tonight when they opens its Western Conference quarterfinal series with the San Jose Sharks, who have a history of playoff upsets.
Dallas toppled a host of franchise records in winning the Central Division and Western Conference. On the way, center Joe Nieuwendyk rediscovered his scoring touch and Ed Belfour regained his status as one of the NHL's premier goaltenders.
Despite all the regular-season accolades, however, the Stars have a lot to prove. After winning the Central Division title last season, Dallas was knocked out in the opening round in seven games by the seventh-seeded Edmonton Oilers.
Nieuwendyk's 39 goals were his most since back-to-back 45-goal seasons in 1989-90. With Mike Modano missing 30 games with assorted injuries, Nieuwendyk was Dallas' leading scorer with 69 points. He also tied for fifth in the NHL with 14 power-play goals on the league's best unit with the extra man. Modano returned from a shoulder injury just in time for the playoffs and his presence instantly makes the Stars more formidable. He collected 21 goals and 38 assists in 52 games and remarkably was tied for third in the league with five shorthanded tallies.
Belfour led the league with a 1.88 goals-against average, was second with 37 wins, third with nine shutouts and eighth with a .916 save percentage. But he lost both starts against San Jose this season as the Sharks and Stars split the four-game series. Belfour finished up the 1996-97 season with San Jose.
The Sharks are in the playoffs for the first time since 1995, but they are perfect in the first round of the playoffs, especially when they are facing a high seed. They shocked top-seeded Detroit in seven games in 1994 and stunned second seed Calgary in seven games the following year.
To qualify for the postseason, San Jose went 7-2-3 over the final 12 games, including a 4-2-2 mark on the road.
San Jose acquired Mike Vernon, the 1997 Conn Smythe Trophy winner, from the Red Wings in the offseason, but Kelly Hrudey could see most of the action in the nets in this series. Hrudey is 6-2 against Dallas as a member of the Sharks and 13-6-5 lifetime versus the Stars with a 2.72 GAA.
Guy Carbonneau and defenseman Richard Matvichuk led the Stars with three points apiece against San Jose, while Tony Granato paced the Sharks with four points -- all goals.
#2 COLORADO AVALANCHE vs #7 EDMONTON OILERS
Wednesday April 22 9pm The Edmonton Oilers look for another first-round upset tonight when they take on the favored Colorado Avalanche in Game One of their Western Conference quarterfinal series.
Edmonton and Colorado faced each other in the playoffs last year, with the Avalanche prevailing in five games to advance to the conference finals.
Colorado has owned the Oilers over the last three seasons, going 12-1-2 against Edmonton since December 7th, 1995. But the Oilers snapped a 14-game winless streak against the Avalanche in their last meeting, a 5-4 overtime triumph in Denver on March 2nd.
The Oilers turned things around after acquiring right wing Bill Guerin in a four-player swap with the New Jersey Devils on January 4th. Edmonton went 24-15-1 down the stretch, closing with four straight wins. Curtis Joseph may not have the Stanley Cup rings, but, when hot, is certainly comparable with Patrick Roy. But Joseph was 0-5 against the Avalanche during the season and is 4-13-2 against them lifetime, while Roy owns a 21-6-2 career mark versus the Oilers.
In addition to the acquisition of Guerin, Oilers general manager Glen Sather bolstered his defense during the season by obtaining Roman Hamrlik from Tampa Bay, Janne Niinimaa from Philadelphia and Bobby Dollas from Anaheim.
Doug Weight was the Oilers' leading scorer with 26 goals and 44 assists, but the production dipped considerably after that. Dean McAmmond enjoyed a career season with 19 goals and 31 assists and Guerin had 13 goals in 40 games after the trade. But coach Ron Low will need production from sources like Todd Marchant, who scored the Game-Seven overtime winner last season against Dallas, and Ryan Smyth if Edmonton is to make this a long series.
Colorado was not the dominant team it has been, especially late in the season, but the Avalanche did record their third consecutive Pacific Division title. The Avalanche, who were 8-13-1 over their final 22 games, have reached the Western Conference finals in each of the last two seasons and have not lost in the first two rounds of the playoffs since moving from Quebec.
But talent-laden Colorado often looked like it lacked motivation during the regular season, failing to reach the 40-win mark for the first time since the lockout-shortened 1995 season.
The Avalanche lineup includes five 20-goal scorers in Peter Forsberg, Joe Sakic, Valeri Kamensky, Claude Lemieux and Adam Deadmarsh. Hard-working Eric Lacroix and the versatile Rene Corbet added 16 apiece.
Sakic will not play tonight after receiving a one-game suspension for kneeing Detroit's Kris Draper on Saturday. The Avalanche captain missed 18 games earlier this season -- Colorado went 8-10 -- after spraining a left knee ligament in the Olympics.
Forsberg had five goals and 13 assists in six games against the Oilers this season, while Weight had six points to lead Edmonton.
#3 DETROIT RED WINGS vs #6 PHOENIX COYOTES
Wednesday April 22nd 7:30pm The defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings begin the road to repeating tonight when they host the Phoenix Coyotes in Game One of their Western Conference quarterfinal series. Despite finishing with the third seed in the West, the Red Wings are favored to at least return to the finals for the second straight year. The Wings are trying to become the first repeat champions since the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991-92.
It has not been an easy season for Scotty Bowman's club. The Wings have had to overcome the tragic limousine accident that ended Vladimir Konstantinov's career, the trade of Conn Smythe Trophy winner Mike Vernon to San Jose, and were forced to play their first 59 games without star center Sergei Fedorov, who held out.
Without Vernon, the goaltending chores fell to Chris Osgood and he responded with a 33-20-11 record and a 2.21 goals-against average. However, Osgood's playoff reputation is still questionable. Detroit still features one of the most powerful and balanced attacks in the game. Captain Steve Yzerman, who sat out the last three games with a groin injury, led the team with an unspectacular 69 points. But the Wings have 11 players with at least 11 goals.
The Coyotes certainly have a talented group with Keith Tkachuk, Jeremy Roenick, Cliff Ronning and Oleg Tverdovsky, but this franchise has not won a playoff series in 11 years. Phoenix, in its second season removed from its life as the Winnipeg Jets, extended the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim to seven games in last year's first round.
The late-season acquisition of Keith Carney helped a defense that will have its hands full against the Red Wings. Teppo Numminen had an outstanding season with 11 goals, 41 assists and a plus-27 rating while playing every game. But more is expected of Tverdovsky, who, like Fedorov, missed a good chunk of the season due to a contract holdout.
Maybe the only edge the Coyotes have over the Wings is in goal. If Nikolai Khabibulin, who again played 70 games, can play the way he did against Detroit in the 1996 playoffs, this could be an interesting series.
Detroit went 3-0-2 in its first five meetings with Phoenix this season before the Coyotes claimed a 2-1 victory on April 14th. Vyacheslav Kozlov was Detroit's leading scorer in the season series with four goals and seven points. Craig Janney and Tverdovsky each had three points to pace the Coyotes.
#4 ST. LOUIS BLUES vs #5 L.A. KINGS
Thursday April 23rd 7:30pm
A couple of teams that showed vast improvement over last season -- the Los Angeles Kings and St. Louis Blues -- square off in the opener of their Western Conference quarterfinals series tonight at the Kiel Center. The Blues, owners of the longest active postseason streak in professional sports at 19 years, improved 15 points in their first full season under coach Joel Quenneville. And they did it with contributions from the likes of Scott Pellerin, Blair Atcheynum and Terry Yake.
Despite securing the fourth seed in the Western Conference playoffs weeks before the end of the season, St. Louis finished strongly, winning nine of its last 12 games.
While Brett Hull's 27 goals were the fewest of his career and he ended an 11-game scoring drought in the season's final game, the Blues managed to lead the league with 256 goals. That's because they have a balanced lineup that features 12 players with at least 10 goals and another with nine. St. Louis has its share of marquee names in Hull, Pierre Turgeon, Geoff Courtnall, Steve Duchesne, Al MacInnis and Chris Pronger.
When Grant Fuhr was injured in late February, backup Jamie McLennan was a revelation. For the season, McLennan was 16-7-2 with two shutouts and a 2.20 goals-against average.
Fuhr and McLennan will face a young Kings' team that is just as balanced as the Blues. Los Angeles had 10 players with at least 11 goals, led by right wing Glen Murray's 29 and center Yanic Perreault's 28. Jozef Stumpel, acquired in the offseason from Boston, was the team's leading scorer with 78 points and finished sixth in the league with 57 assists, despite missing five games.
Unlike the Blues, Los Angeles has no playoff pedigree. The Kings qualified for the postseason for the first time since reaching the Stanley Cup Finals in 1993. Coach Larry Robinson, who played in the Finals for Los Angeles five years ago, engineered a remarkable turnaround, going from 66 points in 1995-96 to 67 in his first season to 87 this season.
One player who has been able to stay away from criticism is defenseman Rob Blake, whose renaissance has coincided with Robinson's tenure. Blake has been mentioned all season as a candidate for the Norris Trophy and his 23 goals were tops among NHL defensemen.
Stephane Fiset was a workhorse for the Kings, playing 60 games and going 26-25-8 with a 2.71 GAA. But he has yet to prove himself in the playoffs, winning just once in six postseason appearances, and going 2-7 down the stretch in the regular season.
St. Louis won the season series, 3-0-1, outscoring Los Angeles, 17-9.
