WESTERN SEMI-FINALS
GAME SUMMARIES
GAME 2:
#2 DALLAS STARS vs #8 SAN JOSE SHARKS
Dallas leads 2-0
Next Game: Tuesday May 2nd, 2000 10pm at San Jose
Ed Belfour is proving that his phenomenal goaltending in last year's playoffs was no fluke. Belfour posted his second straight shutout and third this postseason, making a first-period goal by Mike Modano hold up as the Dallas Stars beat the San Jose Sharks 1-0 Sunday night. "I'm feeling strong and focused," Belfour said. "That's the key for me. I'm seeing the puck well and the guys are playing great in front of me."
Although Belfour was a hero of Dallas' Stanley Cup championship last summer, some still don't consider him an elite goalie, preferring to remember his reputation as a big-game choker. He wasn't chosen for the All-Star game and a recent arrest further tarnished his image.
Love him or hate him, Belfour hasn't allowed a goal in 138 minutes and 53 seconds. That streak will be on the line in Game 3 Tuesday night at San Jose, where fans still haven't forgiven him for leaving the Sharks and signing with Dallas three years ago.
"Going there 2-0, it's a good feeling going into that building," he said.
Belfour was at his best in the final minute when a power play and an empty net gave San Jose a 6-on-4 skating advantage.
In the first 10 seconds, he made a kick save up close and snared a long shot by Gary Suter with his glove, bringing 17,001 fans to their feet with chants of "Ed-die! Ed-die!" He kicked away another Suter shot with 17 seconds left, then the Sharks' last two attempts went wide of the goal.
"Suter's shot went through five or six bodies," Modano said. "Eddie made a great save, the save of the game."
The Sharks' scoring drought can be traced to the injuries hampering leading scorer Owen Nolan. Team doctors forced him to miss this game because of the foot and-or shoulder problems that made him ineffective in the opening 4-0 loss.
"It's really frustrating to sit, especially in a 1-0 game," said Nolan, who was uncertain whether he'd play Tuesday. "It's something where you never know what's going to happen. This was not my decision."
Coach Darryl Sutter said he told the team not to expect Nolan back this postseason.
How important is Nolan? He scored 20 percent of San Jose's goals in the regular season, then upped that to 30 percent (six of 20) in the first round. His replacement, Alexander Korolyuk, took just one shot. Korolyuk had been a healthy scratch the previous three games.
Eighth-seeded San Jose upset No. 1 seed St. Louis in the first round by splitting the first two games on the road. This time, the Sharks go home still seeking their first goal of the series.
"How do you get quality chances against Belfour?" Sutter said. "They're a great defensive club. You're not going to get much. That's the way it is."
Belfour has won seven straight postseason games at Reunion Arena, dating to last season. He's allowed just five goals and had four shutouts in that span. He has 10 career playoff shutouts; these are his first consecutive.
Belfour made 19 saves Sunday night -- one more than in Game 1 -- but every one was crucial because Dallas couldn't get a second shot past Steve Shields despite many good opportunities.
The puck not going in usually had more to do with Dallas missing than Shields making a play, such as Jamie Langenbrunner hitting a post and Hull shooting the puck into the side of the net.
On the goal, Shields stopped a long slap shot from Hull, but allowed a long rebound into open ice. Modano beat two Sharks to the puck and fired it past a diving Shields, who finished with 17 saves.
Modano is playing at as high a level as Belfour.
He has a team-best four goals and points in six straight games. Modano has been the fastest skater, even while double-shifting, and he plays key roles on both specialty teams.
"He pretty much does everything that could be asked of a hockey player," teammate Blake Sloan said. "He's got the whole package. Sometimes I find myself watching him. It puts you in awe."
The referees let both teams go full throttle. There were no penalties called in the first period, and none late in the third when two skirmishes broke out on one play.
Before the last, intense minute, Sutter called a timeout to try and find a way to beat Belfour.
"Eddie made a big save at the end," Sutter said. "When he's in that zone, he doesn't leave much for rebounds. You're not going to score on him unless it's something he doesn't see."
#3 COLORADO AVALANCHE vs #4 DETROIT RED WINGS
Colorado leads 2-0
Next Game: Monday May 1st, 2000 7pm at Detroit
Peter the Great is beginning to rule the postseason.
Without a goal in the first four playoff games, Peter Forsberg scored his third goal in as many games -- and his third straight game-winner -- as the Colorado Avalanche beat the Detroit Red Wings 3-1 on Saturday. With the penalty-marred victory, the Avalanche took a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinals. Games 3 and 4 are scheduled for Detroit on Monday and Wednesday.
Forsberg and Milan Hejduk both had power-play goals in the first period for Colorado, 14-1 in its last 15 games including the final eight games of the regular season.
"I think we played solid, and Patrick (goalie Patrick Roy) has been outstanding," Forsberg said. But he also sounded a warning.
"We had two lucky bounces in the first period and got two goals out of it," he said. "I don't think that is going to happen every game.
"We expected Detroit to come out and play even better than in Game 1, and they did. They are usually so much better at home, so we have to be ready."
Tomas Holmstrom broke Detroit's scoring drought with a goal midway through the third period, but Colorado's Chris Drury countered with an empty-net score at 19:01.
Roy had 29 saves, and Detroit's Chris Osgood had 30. Roy has 116 playoff victories, extending his NHL record.
It was Colorado's sixth straight playoff victory over the Red Wings, counting the final four games of their second-round series a year ago when the Avalanche rallied from a 2-0 series deficit.
"Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be," Wings forward Darren McCarty said. "We won two games here last year, and they bombarded us the next four games. So hopefully we can do that to them.
"In the first two games, they've played sound defensively, and Patrick Roy has come up with the saves when they've needed them and they've been able to get two-goal leads early in each game and sat on it. We're not getting frustrated. The puck is just not going in for us."
Detroit, which led the NHL with 278 goals during the regular season, has only one goal in the series, having been shutout by Roy in the opener.
Detroit captain Steve Yzerman said he was "not overly concerned with the lack of scoring, other than we've got to get more on the power play. Basically the two games have come down to special teams. They scored two power-play goals. That's the name of the game -- special teams."
After these bitter rivals played a rare penalty-free game in the regular-season finale and were reasonably well-behaved in the opening game of this series, the latent animosity surfaced early in Saturday's game. Each team drew seven penalties for 14 minutes in the first period, including double minors for high-sticking against Detroit's Steve Duchesne and Vyacheslav Kozlov.
Vigilant from the start, referees Mark Faucette and Don Van Massenhoven sent McCarty and Colorado's Adam Foote to the penalty box just 1:32 into the game. Later in the period, four players, two from each team, were whistled following a skirmish.
After Duchesne went off on a four-minute penalty that video replay showed should have been called on Sergei Fedorov, Hejduk backhanded in a rebound of his own shot at 8:12.
At 15:49, Forsberg scored on a dazzling play. Bringing the puck down the right side, Forsberg eluded defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom and then put a move on defenseman Chris Chelios in the right circle, spinning Chelios around, before flipping the puck from the slot over Osgood's left shoulder.
"The puck came back to me, hit my pad and I had great speed," Forsberg said. "When I cut back, he (Chelios) was caught in a bad position. And Osgood never saw it."
Colorado outshot the Red Wings 16-9 in the period.
The chippiness continued in the second period, with Detroit drawing five more penalties for 18 minutes.
Four players again were sent to the box at one time, three of them from Detroit including Holmstrom for a 10-minute misconduct at 16:06.
Detroit got a goal by Holmstrom at 8:12 of the third period.
Roy chased the puck to the left of the net but it deflected at a weird angle off the boards to the front of the goal, where Holmstrom scored past a diving Roy.
Detroit finished with 13 penalties totaling 34 minutes, while Colorado had nine penalties for 18 minutes.
Despite that high number, Yzerman insisted that "power-play goals, not penalties, are deciding these games."