Playoffs 2000:Frozen Moment: Devils' quick shots stun Stars

Frozen Moment: Devils' quick shots stun Stars
By Joe Lago
ESPN.com

DALLAS -- The glassy-eyed, emotionless look of shock up and down the Dallas Stars bench said it all.

One minute, the Stars were ready to send the Stanley Cup finals back to New Jersey all tied up at two games apiece. The next minute, shots were ringing out at Reunion Arena.


	As the Devils celebrated their third goal, defenseman Sergei Zubov, right, couldn't believe what was happening.

Bang, Sergei Brylin firing a rebound into a wide-open net.

Bang, John Madden with a wrister from the right circle.

Bang, Brian Rafalski with another wrist shot from the left circle on a breakaway.

Before Dallas could figure out if a second shooter was looming on a grassy knoll, New Jersey had turned a 1-0 third-period deficit into a two-goal lead in Monday's 3-1 victory in Game 4. The life drained out of the Stars so much that coach Ken Hitchcock used his one and only timeout to let his shell-shocked club regroup.

"It was deflating for sure," Dallas winger Jon Sim said. "But you can't lose focus like that. You've got to keep playing for 60 minutes. We can't let up like that. ... Up until that third period, we were feeling pretty good."

"It's unfortunate," Stars center Mike Modano said. "We felt good about playing well the first 40 minutes and let it all slip by."

Dallas, seemingly on the verge of adding to its 1-0 lead on Joe Nieuwendyk's first goal of the series, watched New Jersey eliminate the Stars' renewed hope in rapid-fire fashion, producing three goals in less than four minutes. The goals by Madden and Rafalski -- two of the Devils' four rookies -- happened in a 77-second span.

The Stars were on their fourth power play when Madden, who set a rookie record with six short-handed goals in the regular season, flew up ice and beat Ed Belfour just inside the far post from the left circle to break a 1-1 tie at 4:51 of the third period.

"When we went into the intermission before the third period, we were all real positive," Madden said. "We just said it was a matter of time before we scored some goals."

Rafalski's goal was equally stunning. He gathered the puck off a turnover by Guy Carbonneau, skated in all alone and sent a bullet between Belfour's legs for his second goal of the postseason at 6:08.

"I don't know if they lost their spirit, but a couple of quick goals like that can always hurt a team," Devils defenseman Ken Daneyko said. "We take nothing for granted. Dallas kept playing hard and Marty (Martin Brodeur) came up big. They had to take chances, so obviously it created some opportunities for us."

"The most difficult thing for us was that we had key components shut down," Hitchcock said. "Other components beat us today. Kudos to them."

Even more surprising than New Jersey's third-period flurry is the improbable road sweep it completed. The Devils improved to 9-2 away from Continental Airlines Arena this postseason by dealing Dallas its third home loss of the playoffs and putting the Devils just one win away from their second Cup in five years.

"We were in that situation in the last round and were able to come back," Rafalski said of New Jersey's rebound from a 3-1 series deficit against Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference finals. "Hopefully, we've learned from Philly's letdown and can take advantage of the situation."

"We got our heart ripped out from us a little bit today," Hitchcock said. "We went from quite a high to quite a low."