Dallas In Big Trouble

Well, this isn't turning out to be much of a series, is it? The Dallas Stars are doing everything but throw the series away. Well, that isn't true... the Red Wings are just playing exceptionally well. Between offense and defense, the Red Wings have really given the Stars a difficult puzzle to solve and they now have found themselves behind the 8-ball.

On Monday night, the Stars had themselves a chance to get back into the series with the game at home. The Red Wings, however, had other ideas, especially after the midway point of the second period. The Stars kept up with the Wings through 31 minutes of the game, but that's about where it left off.

Once Jiri Hudler (Box 4) scored midway through the second period, the Red Wings tightened up and didn't let another one through their own end and ended up scoring a couple more to salt the game away. The final score being 5-2, in favour of the Red Wings, taking a 3-0 series lead. Hudler ended up with his first game-winner of the playoffs on his third goal and now is up to a box high of 13 points.

Besides Hudler, there were several others with multi-point games in Game 3. Pavel Datsyuk (Box 2) ended up with a hat-trick, Henrik Zetterberg (Box 1) had a goal and 2 assists and Brian Rafalski (Box 9) added a pair of assists.

Well, this shouldn't be considered an excuse, more so a reason, but Jere Lehtinen's (Box 3) absence from the Stars line-up was certainly noticable, especially when it came to the special teams for Dallas. Moreso the power play, which went 0 for 6 and gave up a shorthanded goal to Zetterberg, than the penalty kill, which was a perfect 3 for 3. Lehtinen missed the contest with a leg injury and is still questionable for Game 4.