Stars seize moment against slacking Wings

DALLAS – The Dallas Stars staved off the inevitable Wednesday night. They got a little help from the referees, the hockey gods and from the Detroit Red Wings, who should learn a valuable lesson from their 3-1 loss in Game 4.

The leaders of the Western Conference finals will try to punch their Stanley Cup ticket Saturday at home where the Wings will likely not wait 30 minutes before getting serious about playing like they did here.

“We wanted it to be our best game of the playoffs,” Detroit forward Darren McCarty said. “And while I wouldn’t say we’ve played some bad games, it wasn’t our worst but it wasn’t enough. At this time of the year, conference finals, it’s got to be a full 60-minute effort.”

The Red Wings came out flat and appeared to go through the motions at the outset for maybe the first time in this entire playoff season. That, more than a bad call to deny the Wings a 1-0 lead, two drives that rang off posts and another off the crossbar, cost Detroit its nine-game playoff winning streak.

“We know we have to come out a lot harder in Game 5 and match the intensity they brought tonight,” Red Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom said.

The question that begs answering: why did the Stars wait this long to play in the series this way? Did they really need to face an 0-3 deficit and the prospects of getting embarrassingly tossed into the offseason on their home ice?

“We’ve got a lot of character in this room and we didn’t want to get swept by Detroit,” Stars defenseman Stephane Robidas said. “We knew we had more to give, we knew we could play better.”

The Stars had to generate their own energy at the start because the overdone efforts of public address announcer Bill Oellermann (Youuur DaLLLaaaAAASSS STARRRRrrrrzzzz!!!) weren’t enough to pump up the building that was dead. But the Wings didn’t feel like going for more than a public skate in the first 20 minutes; three times they glided to the penalty box and left goalie Chris Osgood to fend for himself on the penalty kill.

Detroit survived a first period in which it produced only five shots and lost eight of 15 faceoffs – a rarity in this series – but didn’t take advantage of three straight power plays in the span of less than nine minutes in the second period.

The Wings did score the first goal, but referee Kelly Sutherland had something else to say about it. Pavel Datsyuk’s shot from the right point went past Marty Turco, but Sutherland immediately waved off the power-play goal at 7:34 when he determined that Tomas Holmstrom’s rear end was breaking the plane of the blue-painted goalie crease and thus obstructed the goalie illegally. We’re not making this up, but Sutherland sure did.

“It was a reputation call totally,” Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. “In the league, there’s a lot that goes on on the ice. Sometimes a guy gets tripped and you miss it. Some things go wrong and you miss it. Just don’t make stuff up.

“These guys are working hard to get to the Stanley Cup, too. Kelly Sutherland is a good referee. He just blew it.”

Dallas has been complaining throughout the series about Holmstrom’s penchant for crowding the goalie, and Detroit may have gotten away with that on a goal earlier.

“On a goal like that they should be able to go upstairs, especially in a game that big in a series this big,” Lidstrom said.

The call, however, didn’t decide the game. Even Loui Eriksson’s fourth goal of the postseason at 19:37 of the second period, which gave Dallas its first lead of the series, didn’t do it. After Henrik Zetterberg’s stoppable wrist shot from the left circle slipped past Turco to cap a 3-on-2 rush tied it 49 seconds into the third period, Dallas’ response on a power play less than five minutes later did the trick.

With Brian Rafalski off for tripping Brad Richards to prevent the Dallas forward from skating off on a breakaway, Stars defenseman Sergei Zubov recognized an even bigger advantage for the home team and reacted quickly.

Wings penalty killer Dan Cleary broke his stick early in the 5-on-4, and Zubov reacted by calling for the puck, moving to help flood Dallas’ personnel to Cleary’s side of the ice, then patiently waited for Mike Modano to fill the slot. Zubov knew he’d have a clear passing lane to the prime scoring spot because Cleary had no stick to deny a pass.

Zubov put it on Modano’s tape and the greatest U.S.-born scorer the league has ever seen buried his chance at 5:35.

“We were looking for a better team effort and that’s what we got,” Dallas coach Dave Tippett said. “I thought all of our best players stepped up tonight. They played hard minutes.

“We moved Modano over to the wing, he jumped in there with Richards and played very well. (Brenden) Morrow and (Mike) Ribeiro, that looked like the first game where their legs are starting to come back from the last series.”

Morrow capped the scoring with his ninth of the playoffs at 14:34.

“We talked before the game we have two days off so we’ve given ourselves some life,” Tippett said. “The two days of rest should really help us.”