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." |