Frozen Moment: A clinic on killing Dallas
By Joe Lago
ESPN.com
DALLAS -- Mike Modano had the
puck on his stick looking like the dangerous Mike Modano he's always been --
skating backwards on the left point and anticipating the perfect moment to
feed one of his teammates for the game-tying goal.
Then, without any warning, he fell.
Shortly after that, the Stars collapsed once again against the super-human
penalty kill of the Devils, who denied Dallas on its last three man
advantages -- including a momentum-turning 5-on-3 in the first period -- to
post a 2-1 road victory in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals.
|  | | Scott Stevens, left, and Martin Brodeur did their jobs well when down a man. |
Finally, special teams became a determining factor in this best-of-7 series.
New Jersey protected its lead off Petr Sykora's second-period,
power-play goal with outstanding shorthanded work and some fortuitous
bounces to regain home-ice advantage.
"Our penalty killing won us the game," said Devils head coach Larry Robinson, whose team has allowed only four power-play goals in 20 playoff games -- compared to 10 in 20 games when the Devils won the Cup in '95.
It also put life in the legs of the Devils when they needed it most.
Already down 1-0 on Sylvain
Cote's power-play goal at 13:08 of the first period, New Jersey dug
itself a deeper hole when Vladimir
Malakhov and Claude
Lemieux drew back-to-back penalties. Suddenly, the Stars had 49 seconds
of a two-man advantage to pad their lead before the rambunctious Reunion
Arena fans.
The three-man unit of John
Madden, Scott Niedermayer and Scott Stevens erased the first
penalty as Dallas' power play produced just one shot on goal. The Devils
rode the emotion of that clutch kill by tying the game on Jason Arnott's goal with 1:54
remaining in the first.
"That was the turning point of the game," defenseman Ken Daneyko said. "If Dallas
scores there, it's 2-0. We just did a good job on the penalty kill tonight.
We probably took too many penalties for Larry's liking."
"After we killed that penalty, we could see we got some momentum back,"
Stevens said. "Afterward, we scored that big goal that tied the game up, so
it was definitely a big kill for us."
Robinson said the key was keeping the puck on the
perimeter and Modano and Brett
Hull within their sights.
"A lot of times, your best penalty killer is the guy between the pipes," he
added. "(Brodeur) made huge stops for us."
Brodeur also made a monumental mistake when he inadvertently flipped the
puck into the stands to draw an ill-timed, delay-of-game penalty with 4:15
to play. Explained Robinson: "Well, Marty didn't think my hair was gray
enough, so he wanted to make it a little grayer."
New Jersey withstood Dallas' late flurry because of Brodeur. He stopped
Joe Nieuwendyk's backhand try
on Dallas' only shot on that man advantage. Then, when the Stars went to an
extra attacker for the final 1:19, he blocked a Brett Hull one-timer for one of
his 22 saves.
"It was just a bad mistake," said Brodeur of his faux pas. "Fortunately,
enough of my team came through for me."
"We had a couple of chances at the end," a frustrated Modano said. "Both
teams play very solid with the lead. It's tough trying to take that away." |
