West finals get underway as Red Wings host Stars
Posted: Thu May 8 10:50 AM
(Sports Network) - The Western Conference finals get underway tonight in Hockeytown, as the top-seeded Detroit Red Wings welcome the fifth-seeded Dallas Stars to Joe Louis Arena for Game 1 of the best-of-seven series.
The Red Wings won three of the four regular-season meetings with Dallas this season. The Stars found goals hard to come by in those contests, as they managed to score just five times in the four tests.
Detroit has won all three of its postseason meetings with the Stars franchise. The teams last met in the 1998 conference finals when the Red Wings beat Dallas in six games en route to their second straight Stanley Cup crown.
The Red Wings were 29-9-3 as the host club this season, while Dallas was 22-14-5 on the road.
Game 2 of this set will also take place in Detroit and is scheduled for Saturday night.
The Red Wings are in the conference finals for the second straight year. Detroit is now one step away from reaching the Stanley Cup finals for the first time since winning its last world title in 2002.
The Stars are in the conference finals for the first time since 2000, when they eventually lost to New Jersey in the Cup finals. Dallas won its lone Stanley Cup championship in 1999.
Detroit has reached this stage by beating Nashville in six games during the opening round and then swept Colorado in the conference semifinals.
The Stars were huge underdogs against last year's Cup champions Anaheim in the opening round, but Dallas downed the Ducks in six games. San Jose was also favored against Dallas in the conference semifinals, but the Stars ousted the Sharks in six, despite nearly blowing a 3-0 series lead.
Dallas had three days off between it's series-clinching win against San Jose and Game 1 of this set against Detroit. That's a good thing considering the Stars went three full overtime periods in Game 6 against San Jose before finally ending the series in quadruple OT.
It's not surprising that Marty Turco was the hero in the marathon game against San Jose because Dallas' goaltender has been the best player for the Stars so far in this postseason. Turco stopped 61-of-62 shots in Game 6 and is 8-4 with a 1.73 GAA and .929 save percentage in the playoffs.
However, Turco has struggled mightily in his career against Detroit, going just 2-10-5 against the Red Wings with a 2.88 GAA and .897 save percentage.
Dallas forward Stu Barnes sat out the last three games of the San Jose series with concussion-like symptoms and is expected to miss this evening's tilt as well. Stars defenseman Philippe Boucher hasn't played since suffering a hip injury in Game 3 against Anaheim and is doubtful tonight.
Through two rounds of this year's postseason the story for the Red Wings has been centerman Johan Franzen, who leads all NHL players with 11 goals. Franzen posted two hat tricks in the conference semifinals sweep of Colorado and his 14 points (11 goals, 3 assists) leads all Detroit players this postseason.
The 28-year-old Swedish centerman has 26 goals in his last 26 games dating back to the regular season.
Franzen's prolific offensive output has been huge for Detroit, which in recent years was forced to get most of its scoring from the top line of Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and Tomas Holmstrom.
The first unit has not disappointed so far in the playoffs, especially Zetterberg and Datsyuk, who each have notched 13 points in 10 games. Zetterberg, the centerman, has seven goals and six assists, while left wing Datsyuk has notched five goals and eight helpers.
Another big piece to the Detroit puzzle this postseason has been the goaltending of Chris Osgood, who actually started the playoffs as the backup to Dominik Hasek. After Hasek went 2-2 in the first four games of the opening- round set against Nashville, head coach Mike Babcock switched to Osgood and it has made all the difference.
The Red Wings have won every game with Osgood in goal this postseason, as the 35-year-old is 6-0 with a 1.52 goals-against average and .937 save percentage. Osgood helped Detroit win a Stanley Cup title as the team's starting goaltender in the 1998 postseason.
