WESTERN QUARTER-FINALS
GAME SUMMARIES
GAME 1:
#1 DALLAS STARS vs #8 EDMONTON OILERS
Dallas leads 1-0
Next Game: Friday April 23rd, 1999 8:30pm at Dallas
Guy Carbonneau scored with 6:53 to play Wednesday night as the heavily favored Dallas Stars rallied for a 2-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs.
Carbonneau's wrist shot from the right circle went between goaltender Tommy Salo's legs.
The second game of the best-of-7 series will be played in Dallas on Friday night.
Carbonneau's 35th career playoff goal came on a perfect setup pass from Dave Reid after Blake Sloan had shot and missed. The 39-year-old Carbonneau is in his 16th playoffs.
Losing 1-0, it took only 13 seconds into the third period for Dallas to tie the game. Jere Lehtinen chased the puck down behind the Oilers' goal and spun around the net to beat Salo on his glove side.
Salo, who came to Edmonton from the New York Islanders in March and was 8-2-2 in the regular season, was making his first NHL playoff start.
Outshot and outhustled for almost two periods, Edmonton stunned the Stars on a goal by Rem Murray with 1:06 left in the second period for a 1-0 lead.
Ethan Moreau got the puck in a scramble behind the Dallas goal and passed it to Murray, who beat goalie Ed Belfour with a quick wrist shot.
Until that point the Oilers had been outshot 15-3 in the second period, depending on Salo's sharp goaltending to keep the game scoreless.
Belfour celebrated his 34th birthday by stopping 12 of 13 shots for the win. Salo faced 31 shots.
The Stars, who had an NHL-best 114 points to win the Presidents' Trophy, had three wins and a tie against the No. 8-seeded Oilers in the regular season.
Dallas knocked the Oilers out of the playoffs 4-to-1 last year after Edmonton had defeated Dallas in overtime of Game 7 to oust the Stars in the postseason two years ago.
Edmonton played without its two top goal scorers, Bill Guerin and Josef Beranek, while Dallas was without Pat Verbeek and suspended captain Derian Hatcher. Guerin, Beranek and Verbeek are all injured.
#2 COLORADO AVALANCHE vs #7 SAN JOSE SHARKS
Colorado leads 1-0
Next Game: Monday April 26th, 1999 10:30pm at San Jose
Despite a long layoff prompted by the shootings at Columbine High School, Colorado Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy didn't lose his edge. Roy stopped a season-high 42 shots as the Avalanche defeated the San Jose Sharks 3-1 Saturday night in the first game of their playoff series.
The series had been scheduled to open in Denver, with games Wednesday and Thursday nights. But the start was postponed after 15 people died, including the two teen-aged gunmen, in the rampage at the Littleton, Colo., school Tuesday.
Roy, who got his 400th career victory earlier this season, now has 100 playoff victories -- the most in NHL history.
"All of them are special, but I remember games like this because they mean something to me," he said.
Joe Sakic had two goals and an assist, while former Shark Sandis Ozolinsh added a goal and an assist for Colorado, which finished in second place in the Western Conference behind Dallas. "It's been a hard couple of days for everyone, but we came out and played a great game," Colorado coach Bob Hartley said.
Sakic scored his 36th career playoff goal and the first of the series with a hard shot from the right point that got past Sharks goalie Mike Vernon 16:16 into the first period. The goal came on a power play, with San Jose's Joe Murphy serving a penalty for goalie interference.
Colorado went up 2-0 with 5:21 left in the second period on Ozolinsh's power-play goal that rebounded off Vernon. Ozolinsh leaped into the air after watching the puck hit the back of the net.
Sakic, who led Colorado with 41 goals during the regular season, scored his second goal at 2:26 into the third period, taking a pass from Milan Hejduk and beating Vernon from the corner of the crease.
"Everyone was nervous, and we made some early mistakes in the first few shifts," Sakic said. "Roy was just awesome out there, but he's like this every playoffs."
The Sharks avoided the shutout 14:05 into the third with a power-play goal against Roy, who until then looked unbeatable.
Vernon, who won the Stanley Cup with Detroit in 1997 and Calgary in 1989, stopped 28 shots for the Sharks, who finished in seventh place in the Western Conference.
"We've had almost a week off now, but both teams did," Vernon said. "It should have worked in our favor, but it didn't."
San Jose defenseman Andrei Zyuzin was serving the first of a two-game suspension for slashing Anaheim left wing Jim McKenzie on April 17.
Colorado defenseman Alexei Gusarov collided with a teammate midway through the final period and had to be helped from the ice. Gusarov sprained his knee and is out indefinitely.
The sellout crowd at the San Jose Arena observed a moment of silence before the game in memory of the slain students. The Avalanche players wore uniform patches, and the Sharks wore helmet stickers bearing the initials CHS for Columbine High School.
After the second game Monday night, the series will move back to Denver for three games.
"It took a couple of minutes for us to loosen up on the ice," Roy said. "We were anxious, very anxious, before we came out, but that worked to our advantage."
#3 DETRIOT RED WINGS vs #6 ANAHIEM MIGHTY DUCKS
Detriot leads 1-0
Next Game: Friday April 23rd, 1999 7:30pm at Detriot
The Detroit Red Wings checked, whacked and mauled their way to a 5-3 playoff victory over Anaheim on Wednesday night, with Steve Yzerman getting a hat trick. But the hardest hit for the Mighty Ducks was self-inflicted.
Goaltender Guy Hebert was injured midway through the game when Brendan Shanahan, driving hard to the net, was hit hard by Ducks defenseman Ruslan Salei and sent flying. His skate clipped Hebert on the top left of his mask and he was forced to leave at 9:33 with the Red Wings leading 3-2.
The Red Wings scored twice off backup goalie Tom Askey, an emergency call-up when Dominic Roussel came down with the flu. Hebert's status for the next game was not immediately known.
The Red Wings, attempting to become the first team to win three straight Stanley Cups since the New York Islanders won four in a row from 1980-83, host the Ducks again Friday before the best-of-7 series moves to Anaheim for Game 3 Sunday.
Wendel Clark, acquired at the trade deadline, added a goal and an assist and Doug Brown also scored. Paul Kariya had a goal and two assists for the Ducks and Marty McInnis and Teemu Selanne scored.
Yzerman, the MVP of playoffs a year ago, already appeared in mid-playoff form with a nasty gash over his left eye and creating numerous scoring chances. The first two goals came from just outside the crease and the final with 78 seconds left was all hustle.
The first tied the game at 1-1 at 11:06 of the first period. A slap shot by Nicklas Lidstrom was just wide right, but it bounced off the end boards to Yzerman, who slid it between the post and Hebert's pad just before Salei flattened him.
His second came just 31 seconds into the second period. A slap shot from Shanahan at the left point hit Detroit left wing Tomas Holmstrom and bounced straight to Yzerman, who fired it in.
He put it away with 1:18 left when he and Selanne were racing for the puck and he bumped him off it. Askey had come far out of the net to try to help and Yzerman skated to his right and put it just inside the right post.
Yzerman had several other scoring chances, getting three good shots on Hebert in a span of 20 seconds late in the first period. Hebert stopped a slap shot, but the rebound went to Yzerman, who got a strong backhander that Hebert again stopped. He had a one-timer again seconds later but this time Hebert smothered it.
Kariya, who along with Selanne found little open ice against the Red Wings, cut the lead to 3-2 just 1:14 after Yzerman's second goal, beating Detroit goalie Chris Osgood with a slap shot from the top of the right circle.
Clark, who scored the Red Wings' first goal after picking up a lost puck, set up Brown's goal off Askey at 16:49 of the second. He passed from behind the net and Brown backhanded it in.
The Ducks cut the lead to one again at 13:03 of the third when Selanne, who didn't have a shot through the first two periods, took a pass from Kariya from the side of the net and fired it in.
It took less than a minute for the game to get rough, with Detroit right wing Darren McCarty knocking down Johan Davidsson in the right corner and then racing across the ice and delivering a hard hit on Kevin Haller.
By the end of the first period Yzerman and Ducks defenseman Jason Marshall had gashes over their eyes and Paul Kariya, who came the closest he's ever come to a fight in Anaheim's regular-season finale, got into a shoving match with Red Wings agitator Kirk Maltby.
But it was the Red Wings who got the better of the hits throughout the game. McCarty knocked down Ducks defenseman Frederik Olausson and Ulf Samuelsson tackled a rushing Travis Green.
#4 PHOENIX COYOTES vs #5 ST. LOUIS BLUES
St. Louis leads 1-0
Next Game: Saturday April 24th, 1999 3pm at Phoenix
As he has done so often in his career, Al MacInnis made the difference for another playoff team.
MacInnis, the highest-scoring defenseman in the NHL, sent St. Louis to an early lead with a long-distance goal and assisted on two others as the Blues beat the Phoenix Coyotes 3-1 Thursday night to take a 1-0 lead in their first-round series.
"A lot of things have been going pretty good for us of late," he said. "It just so happens that we seem to be playing our best hockey, our special teams have been solid and the way Grant Fuhr has been playing the last 17 or 18 games has been outstanding."
Fuhr had 26 saves and didn't allow a goal until Robert Reichel put a wrist shot past him with 1:52 left in the game.
But the Blues' steady defense sealed the contest when MacInnis picked up a loose puck and sent it to Scott Pellerin for an empty-net goal with 41.1 seconds remaining.
Fuhr started the scoring play to help himself improve to 87-44 in the postseason, with 16 victories in 17 games against the former Winnipeg Jets. His 87th moved him one behind No. 2 Billy Smith on the all-time playoff-victory list. Colorado's Patrick Roy leads all goalies with 99.
"I think we played well defensively," Fuhr said. "It was a fairly tough night, but we did what we had to do."
The Coyotes, completing their third season in Phoenix, had home ice for only the third time in 14 postseasons and for the first time in 14 years, and they were 10-3 in first-round openers.
But MacInnis took the white-clad crowd out of it with an early goal, and the Coyotes seemed dispirited without top scorer Jeremy Roenick, who sustained a broken jaw and thumb against Dallas three games before the season ended.
The crowd wore white in honor of a longtime franchise tradition called a "Whiteout," carried over from when the team was in Winnipeg. The idea was to intimidate the visiting team.
"The noise was incredible," St. Louis coach Joel Quenneville said. "You couldn't even make the calls to the guys who were up. But that first goal was helpful. It quieted the fans down."
Phoenix, next-to-last in power-play scoring during the season, went 0-for-6 in this game and was saved from an even bigger loss only by Nikolai Khabibulin's 22 saves, many in the face of short-handed breakaways.
But Khabibulin, who fell to 7-10 in pursuit of the Stanley Cup, couldn't handle the one-timers that MacInnis and Jamie Rivers unleashed from the blue line in the first and second periods.
Rivers, who had only two goals during the season and six in his four-year career, made it 2-0 with a power-play goal with 2:36 left in the second period. He blasted a pass from Terry Yake past Khabibulin high on the stick side.
MacInnis' famed slap shot came into play early.
He scored his 33rd goal in 130 playoff games with a 65-foot shot from behind the Phoenix blue line 2:22 into the game, missing a power-play goal by one second. The sizzling riser appeared to hit the stick of a Phoenix defenseman and change direction just enough to fool Khabibulin. "I got kind of lucky," MacInnis said. "I don't think you're going to score too many from out there on Khabibulin."
The Coyotes' defensemen were tentative by contrast, giving up the puck rather than shoot as time ticked away on their four first-period power plays.
In a series that Phoenix coach Jim Schoenfeld considered pivotal, his team had a five-on-three advantage -- with intimidating St. Louis defenseman Chris Pronger in the penalty box -- for 1:19 midway through the period, but couldn't score.
"We made terrible decisions," Schoenfeld said. "I'm not going to say when or where, but we practiced our power play a lot. We have our plays that we run on the five-on-three, and then we went completely brain-dead."
Fuhr, who was 2-0-1 against Phoenix this season, was sharp from the onset. He stopped Keith Tkachuk on two forehands midway through the period and had 10 saves when the period ended.
He settled the outcome during Phoenix's sixth power play that began 9:03 into the third period.
Fuhr had a pad save on Rick Tocchet's blast from the top of the circle, and then stopped a shot by Teppo Numminen with his shoulder with three seconds before the Blues got back to full strength.
"I figured this would be a long series," Tocchet said. "Obviously the home team would like to win the first game, but in the playoffs, you're going to lose a game. Now we have to see what kind of team we have Saturday."