Belfour Saves Stars, Beat Wings

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

April 16, 1998 / 3:24 AM EDT / CBS Sportsline

Outshot 45-16, the Dallas Stars needed goaltender Ed Belfour at his best against the Detroit Red Wings.

And that's exactly what the Stars got as Belfour survived an early Detroit power-play blitz and finished with 44 saves in a crucial 3-1 victory Wednesday night.

With Belfour winning his sixth straight, Dallas clinched best record and top playoff seed in the Western Conference.

"I thought he was outstanding early and they put up an awful lot of shots on the perimeter and put a lot of traffic in front of the net," Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said.

Pat Verbeek scored twice, including the go-ahead goal in the first period, and Greg Adams notched Dallas' first goal to help the Stars improve to 107 points, three better than Detroit, which has one game remaining.

Dallas also maintained it's one-point lead over New Jersey in the Presidents' Trophy race for the league's best record and home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs.

The Devils beat the Buffalo Sabres 5-4 in overtime Wednesday night.

Dallas' penalty-killing unit stopped all seven Detroit power plays, and the Stars' defensive unit received a dominating physical effort from Derian Hatcher, who was credited with seven hits.

"We had two things we had to accomplish tonight, which was win home ice and beat Detroit," Hatcher said.

The Red Wings had two victories and two ties against Dallas over the first four games of the season series before the Stars salvaged the finale.

"We look at it that we beat a good team," Hitchcock said. "We've now beaten all the teams in our conference, and that was what the guys talked about in the locker room."

Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman wasn't as concerned with the Western Conference title, scratching Steve Yzerman, Igor Larionov and Viacheslav Fetisov with minor injuries.

"It's good to have (home ice) once the playoffs start, but the thing that really matters is even if you have the top seed you can't just win at home," Bowman said.

The Red Wings had a chance to take control early with three power plays and two two-man advantage situations in the game's first five minutes. Detroit had the night's first 14 shots on goal and outshot Dallas in the first period, 19-6.

But Belfour kept the Stars upright and Dallas grabbed a 1-0 lead at 12:23 of the first period on Adams' power-play deflection, his 13th goal.

"I felt pretty good right off the bat, made a few good saves and a few lucky ones," Belfour said. "When that's working for you, things usually go pretty well."

Detroit answered 22 seconds later when Mike Knuble converted Tomas Holmstrom's centering pass, Knuble's seventh.

But the Stars took a 2-1 advantage with 1:06 left in the first period as Verbeek took a pss from Adams and beat Red Wings goalie Chris Osgood from the slot.

Dallas established a more deliberate pace in the scoreless second period, with Detroit still owning a 9-5 shots-on-goal edge.

Belfour made the save of the night with 15:33 left when he denied Darren McCarty with the Red Wings on the power play.

Verbeek added his 30th goal at 5:43 of the third period on a tip-in to extend Dallas' lead to 3-1.

Despite the loss, there were no signs of panic in the Detroit locker room.

"The bottom line is if we play well the next two months, it won't matter how we did in the regular season," Detroit right wing Doug Brown said.