Tuesday, April 29, 2008

A team of destiny


- What else can you say? They're winning on the road. They're getting production from both role players and star players. They're winning overtime games. They're getting top-level goaltending. The money players are delivering. There is just something about this team that you can't explain. There's a confidence, there's a swagger, a belief that they just will not lose.

- Sergei Zubov. What a talent. I severely underrated his return. I got so sick of hearing people talking about his return like Wayne Gretzky was coming back to the lineup. I recognized his greatness for sure, the guy is awesome, but I thought no way would he be able to return and have his stamina intact, and be able to give the Stars 25 minutes of effective ice time.

- Not only is he back, he's playing huge minutes, he's back to quarterbacking the power play, and he's racking up points. A huge power play goal to tie the game in the 3rd (a period in which the Stars now have outscored opponents 18-6).

- Marty continued to perform like a top 3 goalie in the NHL. If not for a breakaway goal, he'd have yet another shutout. His save in OT on CheeChoo no doubt turned the series. They score there, it's suddenly 2-1, with the biggest game of the season tomorrow night. Instead, he stoned him, and now it's 3-0 and the Stars can close this thing out tomorrow.

- Brendan Morrow is quickly building his legend as the Captain of the Dallas Stars. He is rising to every occasion. He is not disappearing from the spotlight. One night he's scoring the game winner (Game 1), then he's assisting on big goals (Game 2), and then he's leading the team in hits and being the inspirational leader on the ice (Game 3).

- He's a special player. A player who can combine top-notch leadership qualities with tangible production as well, (especially production in the playoffs), is about the most valuable player you can have on a hockey team outside of a kickass goalie. Brendan Morrow is a stud.

- What has to be killing San Jose is that it looked to me as though they gave their best shot tonight. That was probably their best effort of the series. Joe Thornton, CheeChoo, and Setagoochi (spelling?) were active and assaulting Turco all night. San Jose stayed out of the penalty box for the most part, played pretty good defense for about 2 periods. And got an absolutely superb performance from their goalie. And that was all they had.

- But in the end, the Stars just played just as well, if not better than San Jose. They owned the 3rd period like they have all during the playoffs. They severely outshot the Sharks in the 3rd, played the entire period in San Jose's end, and once again scored on the power play.

- The Stars seemed to win every loose puck battle, seemed to be the more aggressive team the whole game. They were flying all over the ice and looked like an insanely hungry team.

- Game 4 tomorrow night. End this thing. Get some rest. Let Colorado and Detroit beat each other up. Teams that want to make a long trip through the playoffs need at least 1 quick series at some point, preferably in Round 1 or Round 2. They need a sweep or a 5 gamer in order to rest up for a long series down the road. You can't make every series into a 6 or 7 gamer, it takes too much out of you. You'll have nothing left come Round 3 or Round 4. The Stars need this win tomorrow night.


- I'm ready for Game 4.



- This is great.

No comments: