Round 1, Game 4, Stars vs. Ducks 04-17-08

Dallas 3, Anaheim 1

See? Game 3 wasn’t the end of the world. The Stars snapped back and played a brilliant Game 4. Turco helped the skaters by keeping them in the game when the Ducks were trying to set the tone early, and the skaters helped Turco by scoring goals and defending.

Last night was stormy in more ways than one. The big hail-laden storm that swept through the Metroplex came to my neighborhood with just about six minutes to go in the third period. The satellite picture froze up and eventually went black, so I had to listen to it on the radio. I missed the last goal and the goalie congrats (which I always love to see).

Stu Barnes’ breakaway goal, I did get to see. Modano’s pass was perfect and Stu got Giguere to move just enough to get that puck past him. I didn’t see it until the highlights later, but Stuuuuuu also made a tricky pass to Steve Ott for the clincher goal. He just had a really great game all around.

Marty Turco came just seven seconds short of getting his fifth shutout in his last ten playoff games. He looked great from the first minute of the game. I was listening to Bob and Dan on The Ticket and Bob Sturm said he can always tell from Turco’s body language whether he’s going to be on that night. I hadn’t ever really thought about that, but at the beginning of the game, after he made the first couple of saves, I got the feeling that Turco was going to be on. And he was.

Mike Modano is on his game. He made that beautiful pass to spring Stu and he was all over the ice with that hounding stickwork. He’s just really looking good.

Trevor Daley’s rink-length race to catch up to the Duck who was in on a breakaway was a sight to behold. He had that goal disallowed, but it was still a beauty, and he was zipping all over the offensive zone the whole game. He’s a speedster, and I would think that it throws the Duck defense all off when the Stars defenseman is down at the net trying to score. They can’t guess where he’s going to be, because he can be anywhere. And he’s speedy enough to catch up to somebody that gets by him.

Joel Lundqvist’s goal was an example of two guys who were paying attention. Loui Eriksson stole Sean O’Donnell’s pass that was intended for Teemu Selanne, by whipping his stick around to catch it then pushing the puck over to Lundqvist, who was already headed for the net, because he saw Loui make that amazing steal.

Sean O’Donnell made the pass because he thought Loui was out of position to steal it.

“I saw Teemu there,” O’Donnell said. “I’ll have to look at it again, but the read I had was that the guy (Eriksson) had his back turned, so I thought I could snap it real fast, right by him. They say that going through the middle, you have to be 100 percent, and obviously I wasn’t.”

The thing is, Eriksson’s back pretty much was turned, he’s just really fast. And Lundqvist was just as fast, recognizing the steal and heading toward the net.

Philippe Boucher was scratched with an injury that they’re not even going to re-evaluate for another week. I have no idea what that could be. The obvious guess is a shoulder, since he’s had so much trouble with both of them all season. The official word is a lower-body injury, so it’s almost assuredly upper-body. I just feel terrible for him. I hope it’s a short-term thing.

Mark Fistric was added in Bouche’s place on Thursday morning and played his first NHL playoff game ever. And he looked great! He seemed calm, and he had some good hits. At one point Teemu had come down the right side and was raising his stick to shoot and Fistric hit him right in the ribs. It’s little things like that that he’s good at. I’m sure he was nervous the first couple of shifts but he, like Niskanen and Grossman, is never intimidated by the big stars on the other team.

Every player on the team is shining right now. Every single one.

Tonight is a BIG game. I am not going to make any predictions and I’m not going to speculate and I’m not going to do any what-if scenarios. I am just going to watch the game and hope hope hope we win it.