WESTERN SEMI-FINALS
GAME SUMMARIES
GAME 3:
#1 DALLAS STARS vs #5 ST. LOUIS BLUES
Dallas leads 2-1
Next Game: Wednesday May 12th, 1999 7:30pm at St. Louis
After a slow start in the playoffs, Pavol Demitra is the St. Louis Blues' go-to guy again.
The team's leading scorer continued a postseason surge when he scored from the right side of the net at 2:43 of overtime for a 3-2 victory over the Dallas Stars on Monday night.
"Everybody tried to help me and I'm back," Demitra said. "I'm just happy and I'm enjoying my time on the ice and enjoying my time with the puck."
Demitra has five goals and eight points in the playoffs, including an assist in Game 3, and three of the goals have come in the last two games. He was 10th in the NHL with 89 points, but had entered the game a team-worst minus-4.
The game-winner came off a setup from Geoff Courtnall. Demitra knifed in front of a Stars defenseman and beat Ed Belfour to put an early end to the Blues' fifth overtime game in 10 postseason games.
"Somebody made a nice pass out of the corner," Belfour said. "I wish I could have gotten further out. Demitra made a nice shot."
Two less-likely sources of offense, faceoff specialist Mike Eastwood and rookie Jochen Hecht, also scored as the Blues cut the Stars' series lead to 2-1 heading into Game 4 Wednesday night.
The Stars, the NHL regular-season champions with a franchise-record 114 points, missed a chance to put the Blues in an almost impossible situation. Only two teams have recovered from a 3-0 series deficit, the last the New York Islanders in 1975 against Pittsburgh.
"We never thought about losing," Demitra said. "We know we can beat Dallas, and we proved it."
Dallas, which got goals from Darryl Sydor and Brett Hull, won Game 2 in overtime on a goal by Joe Nieuwendyk. The Stars' franchise-record six-game playoff winning streak came to an end.
"As much as you don't want to lose, you can't win them all," said Hull, who played his first postseason game in St. Louis since leaving the Blues after 10 seasons. "You have to battle harder because it's the playoffs.
"The team that makes the most mistakes usually loses, and tonight it was us."
Sydor forced the overtime with his first goal of the playoffs at 9:08 of the third. Grant Fuhr got a glove on Pat Verbeek's drive from the slot, and Grant Marshall got his stick on the rebound before Sydor tapped it in.
Hecht, who was with the Blues for only three games during the regular season, had given St. Louis the lead at 4:52 of the third. Hecht, the leading scorer at Worcester of the AHL with 21 goals and 56 points who joined St. Louis on Saturday, worked a give-and-go with Demitra and slipped a backhander past Belfour.
"He's a great player and to play with him is a pleasure," Hecht said. "I'm learning a lot."
Demitra got open when he avoided a check from Richard Matvichuk.
"I got a little bit lucky and just moved my body and he missed me," Demitra said. "All of a sudden I got almost a breakaway and I just gave it to Hecht."
The tight-checking game was in stark contrast to Game 2, which was filled with odd-man rushes. The Blues, playing in front of the team's first sellout crowd of the playoffs, outshot the Stars 24-18 in regulation.
A four-minute high-sticking penalty on Blues captain Chris Pronger, who caught Derian Hatcher in the face, helped the Stars get off to a fast start. Hull scored his second goal of the playoffs, and only Dallas' third in 33 power-play opportunities, with a shot from the left circle off a feed from Nieuwendyk at 3:07.
The Blues got off only three shots in the first period, but tied it on a fluky goal at 2:58 of the second. Ricard Persson flipped the puck end-over-end toward the net and it deflected off Eastwood's glove and Sergei Zubov's stick before eluding Belfour.
It was Eastwood's seventh career playoff goal in 62 games and second point in 10 games this postseason.
#2 COLORADO AVALANCHE vs #3 DETROIT RED WINGS
Detroit leads 2-1
Next Game: Thursday May 13th, 1999 7:30pm at Detroit
The charm wore off for Bill Ranford and suddenly the Detroit Red Wings aren't invincible any more.
Ranford, the backup Detroit goaltender, let five of the first 23 shots get past him and the Colorado Avalanche continued their success on the road, snapping the Red Wings' playoff winning streak with a 5-3 victory Tuesday night.
"I'm just disappointed," Ranford said. "But, you play this game 27 years and I guess you expect nights like this once in a while."
The Avalanche, 4-0 on the road in the playoffs, ended Detroit's winning streak at 11 games, dating back to last season.
"The puck maybe had eyes a little bit tonight," said Avalanche defenseman Aaron Miller, who scored Colorado's fifth goal. "Sometimes you need that."
With recently released POW Christopher Stone watching from the box of Detroit owner Mike Ilitch, the Avalanche also got goals from Claude Lemieux, Theoren Fleury, Dale Hunter and Chris Drury.
The Red Wings, seeking their third straight Stanley Cup, have a 2-1 lead in the best-of-7 second-round series which continues Thursday at Joe Louis Arena. Game 5 will be Sunday back in Denver.
"Going down 3-0 would have been awful, but this win just means that Game 4 is just as important," Hunter said.
Steve Yzerman, Tomas Holmstrom and Slava Kozlov scored for the Red Wings.
Ranford, the 1990 NHL playoff MVP with Edmonton, was starting his third straight game in goal in place of the injured Chris Osgood, who is out with a sprained right knee.
Despite playing little since being obtained along with three others before the March 23 trading deadline, Ranford had been remarkably solid during the first two games -- including a 4-0 victory in Game 2.
Detroit coach Scotty Bowman wouldn't say who might be in goal for Game 4, but it's likely to be Ranford again.
"We haven't even thought about that," Bowman said. "He (Osgood) hasn't been on the ice since Sunday morning. He got better, then he kind of leveled off."
The Avalanche, who had been preaching self-discipline while losing twice in Denver, finally heeded their own advice in the first period -- and it paid off. Colorado took only one penalty in the period and skated off with a 2-1 lead against the Red Wings, who were short two men when the Avalanche broke through.
Lemieux tied it 1-1 at 11:00 of the first period while Colorado had a two-man advantage. The goal, Lemieux's second of the playoffs, ended a scoreless string of 122 minutes, 44 seconds for the Avalanche, who hadn't scored since the first period of Game 1.
"I think that kind of turned the tide for them," Bowman said.
The Avalanche took the lead on Fleury's fifth goal, with 3:01 left in the first. Fleury, at the right side of the goal, flipped the puck easily over Ranford, who was flat on his back.
The Avalanche blew it open with three goals -- the first each for Hunter, Drury and Miller -- in the first 5:05 of the second period and Norm Maracle replaced Ranford.
"We finally got a couple rebounds by crashing the net," Avalanche center Peter Forsberg said. "They really didn't give us much ice to work with until it got to be 5-1, but we did a good job of going to the net.
"I think that we got him thinking about guys coming at him from the side, and that made a difference."
Yzerman gave Detroit the early lead at 7:07 of the first, two seconds after Lemieux returned from the penalty box.
It was Yzerman's ninth playoff goal, a career best for the Red Wings' captain. Yzerman scored eight in 18 games in 1996, the last time Detroit failed to win the Cup. The team record is 10 by Petr Klima in 1988 and Sergei Fedorov last year.
Holmstrom's fourth goal cut the deficit to 5-2 with 9:09 left in the second and Kozlov scored a power-play goal, his fourth, with 34.5 seconds remaining.
Colorado goaltender Patrick Roy was both brilliant and lucky in the third period. Roy managed to get a skate on what looked like a sure goal for Holmstrom at 6:43. Larry Murphy's slap shot with 8:49 left glanced off Roy, then off the left post.
"We were really tired in the third period, but Patrick was just awesome," Miller said. "There are times when we need him to carry us on our back, and he did it again tonight."
The Red Wings outshot Colorado 47-36, thanks to a 21-5 edge in the third period.