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Posted on Fri, Apr. 18, 2008

The Marty Show was in prime time for Dallas Stars

By JENNIFER FLOYD ENGEL

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

DALLAS -- Forget that 3-1 number attached to the Dallas Stars' victory Thursday.

It was always in doubt. It was never easy.

And it was always about Stars goalie Marty Turco.

He delivered one of those rare yet amazing playoff NHL performances where a player puts his team on his shoulders and says, "Boys, I am not letting us lose." And Turco refused to let them, hoisting them onto his back and to a victory in a must-win Game 4 against Anaheim.

This gives the Stars a 3-1 series lead and grabs the series by the throat.

"I don't feel like I did anything spectacular or anything miraculous," Turco said. "I was just seeing the puck well."

Twenty-second timeout, Marty. Are you sure you did not suffer a concussion when Teemu Selanne hit you?

To detail all of his saves that contradict his downplaying of his excellence is impossible. I have neither the space to write them nor you the time to read all of them.

So instead let's focus on what best encapsulates his effort. His acrobatic save of a point-blank Todd Bertuzzi chance.

It began with Anaheim defenseman Francois Beauchemin flying down the wing early in the second period with the Stars still clinging to a very precarious 1-0 lead. Turco had come way, way out of his crease to take his angle. Unfortunately, for him, thanks to a block and normal puck scootage, it ended up on the other side of the crease and on Bertuzzi's stick. In like an eye blink.

How Turco even got in position to get a stick on the puck is confounding. It required flexibility normally seen only in yogis and cheerleaders. He dove across the crease to make the stick save.

What is crazy is Marty had to be that good for the Stars to have a chance.

"Put it this way, that was the only way," Stars coach Dave Tippett said.

Already without his best defenseman, Tippett went down his two best defensemen for Game 4.

Philippe Boucher joined Sergei Zubov as not available for selection.

This left the Stars' defense with 457-year-old Matty Norstrom, team MVP Stephane Robidas and Trevor Daley in terms of experience. Joining them were babies.

Nicklas Grossman and Matt Niskanen were playing in their fourth-ever NHL playoff games. Mark Fistric was playing his first.

"Uhm, yeah, you could say I was nervous," Fistric said.

Of course, he was. They all were. They are like 14.

Niskanen joked that Turco was the best defensive partner he has ever had before a game in Anaheim. Or I think he was joking. His point was valid. Having a guy like Marty, playing like Marty did Thursday, helps ease some of the fear of messing up.

You know he is going to clean up messes.

And fearing messups is usually what leads to them.

There were a few bumps Thursday, a few moments of ugly, yet all of them were good. Really good. And when they weren't, Marty was very good behind them.

"Everybody said a big thank you to Marty after the game," Robidas said, with Marty sitting right beside him taking fist bumps from Jere Lehtinen and Norstrom as he talked. "I think that is the story of the game right there. He made big, big big saves."

He made exactly the kind of saves he didn't make Tuesday.

A game after being just barely "ish" in Game 3 and really "ish" might be kind considering Turco allowed three goals on the first four shots he faced.

To be fair, all of them probably necessitated Bertuzzi-like saves.

And therein lies Marty's problem. Everybody keeps waiting for him to do spectacular in a game that vaulted the Stars out of the first round.

Wait no longer.

Thanks to Marty, the Stars have three games to win one. They have a path into Round 2 for the first time since 2003 thanks to The Marty Show.

The Stars briefly interrupted TMS briefly for a little of Loui and Dewey. The Swedish duo of Loui Eriksson and Joel Lundqvist, along with Brad Richards, were very good all game.

It was Loui who made the steal, then the pass that gave the Stars that 1-0 lead. Lundqvist simply did the scoring for him.

Stu Barnes added that crucial second goal, on a gorgeous pass from Mike Modano. Their line was also phenomenal, with Steve Ott scoring late for a 3-0 lead.

After Barnes scored, though, everybody in the building knew the Stars were facing their toughest 10 minutes of the series.

Defending champs do not go down easily.

They threw chance after chance at Marty and when that failed, Selanne threw himself at him. He ran Marty, punched him in the face and knocked his head back into the crossbar in the space of a second. You could hear the building worry.

"I got clocked, but I have a pretty good feeling that is wasn't an accident," Marty said.

"But you got to appreciate his moxie.... It kind of doesn't matter now."

Typical Turco.

He'll compliment the guy who ran him, but not himself.

About the only bad thing about his night was that he lost a well-deserved shutout with 8 seconds left. He did not seem to care. If anything, he got a chuckle from the fans chanting "it just doesn't matter."

It doesn't.

It doesn't because Marty was amazing when it did matter.