Round 3, Game 5, Stars at Red Wings 05/17/08

Dallas 2, Detroit 1

Another bridge is crossed. Turco (and by extension, the Stars) win in Detroit.

I’m running out of things to say to express how proud I am of these boys. I just can’t get over what they’re doing.

I am not assuming anything for the future, I’m only reveling in what has happened so far. If this is as far as it gets, it’s still a great, great season. I’m trying really hard not to get ahead of myself here and start thinking about those bridges down the road.

Marty Turco was brilliant tonight. He did all the things that we Stars fans love to see him do. He stopped point-blank shots, he stopped breakaways, he stopped multiple shots in the middle of scrums. And he played the puck.

If you follow the Stars closely, you might get a little jaded by all the talk about how he’s like a “third defenseman,” but after a few games of not seeing it, you can really appreciate what it does for the team’s strategy.

In the first few games, he wasn’t able to play the puck as much as he likes because the Red Wings were really getting in past the defensemen more than they like. But tonight, he was able to not only move the puck out of the way of oncoming Red Wings, but also able to make long breakout passes to forwards to start their own forecheck. He was the primary assist on the game-winning goal by Joel Lundqvist, and the “third assist” on the goal by Trevor Daley. His first pass started that play.

I think the Wings have been so fixated on crowding Marty’s crease, as it were, and the officials were kind of watching for that kind of thing, that when they backed off that plan, they forgot about the way he handles the puck. I also wouldn’t completely discount the idea that they believed the Stars couldn’t beat them in their own arena.

Speaking of Daley’s goal, that was one sweet pass from Brad Richards. I’ve seen a lot of lesser players attempt that kind of thing, but he knew just what he was doing. That guy is deceptively fast, and surprisingly aggressive.

He made quite a few other plays that will go unheralded, but the defense-lover in me noticed. He made one play on a Detroit forward who was just coming out of his zone with the intention of heading toward Marty on a breakaway and Richards catches up to him right away and just pokes the puck right off his stick.

Holmstrom is on my list, you know, because I think he gets away with interference a lot. Today, though, he was called on the most hilarious penalty. He was on his way to his own bench for a shift change, and as he passed the Stars bench he just punched one of the Stars that was on the bench. What was he thinking that would accomplish? I’m not positive, but I bet it was Ott that said something to him. Hilarious.

That one was funny, but Kris Draper’s cross-check to Brenden’s face, away from the play, which wasn’t called, was not funny at all. I would think the league would take a look at that. If they need any proof, they can just look at the mark he left from Brenden’s ear all the way across his cheek. Draper needs a serious talking-to. I don’t like him one bit.

I don’t even know what to think about Game 6. Winning three in a row is very difficult. So is winning two in a row. The Red Wings are facing some trouble, which they haven’t faced yet. This is their “punch in the face” and now we’ll see what they do about it. They don’t have a very flattering reputation in that regard. They’ve been known to have trouble when they’re not dominating. When Zetterberg and Datsyuk start having to work harder for their space, they’re not as fancy.

Dave Tippett will be able to get the Toby Petersen line out against those two with much less trouble when they’re back in Dallas, since the home team gets the last change. In Game 5, they had to work a lot harder to get them out against Zetterberg and Datsyuk, but they did. And those two didn’t have any points. You know, Petersen played in the minors most of the regular season and he might end up being a big key to this whole thing. I really admire Tippett’s handling of this series so far.

I can’t wait for Monday’s game now. There is no way to tell what will happen, but I won’t be disappointed either way. It would be more icing on the cake if they could win and force a game seven.

There’s more icing than cake at this point.