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Posted on Thu, May. 01, 2008

The less Stars swim with Sharks, the better

By JENNIFER FLOYD ENGEL

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

DALLAS -- Baby brooms were present, primed and ready to sweep an assembled AAC mass into a frenzy.

Good vibes in this building, who knew?

A victory, a sweep of what until Wednesday had been a very pliant San Jose team, was all that stood between the Dallas Stars and a probable date with Detroit in the West Finals.

Step away from those brooms.

Sharks 2, Stars 1. And back to San Jose we go.

No sweep, no frenzy, no happy happened here Wednesday. In fact, the only broom being wielded was the one Mavs owner Mark Cuban used to sweep The Little General away after a disappointing end to yet another season in Mavsland.

Apparently, the stench of losing and underachievement hung in the AAC air. Or maybe it was second-hand choke.

Josh "Party at My Place" Howard was in the building Wednesday cleaning his locker (hopefully for good), so there is a possibility second-hand wacky weed smoke dulled the Stars' intensity.

Of course, 9 out of 10 doctors agree second-hand choke is infinitely more dangerous.

Especially for a Stars team that had been humming along.

"I don't think we ever thought we would win four straight in a series against these guys," Stars goalie Marty Turco said. "We smelled the blood."

Sharks, blood. Get it?

The Stars did not. They still have three games to win one, but quicker is definitely better. No need to confuse the Sharks and let them think they have a chance in this series.

"We do not want to give them any life," Stars defenseman Stephane Robidas said. "We kind of give them momentum a little bit, and we don't want to do that. The sooner we can close them the better."

NHL teams do not come back from 3-0 deficits; not historically, not recently. A quick check says 1975 was the second and last time anybody strung together four playoff Ws in a row after going down 3-0.

So there is no need to panic. Not yet.

Get back to me, though, if we're experiencing déjà vu all over again in Game 6.

If you had told this team it'd be up 3-1 going back to San Jose for Game 5, it'd be giddy.

Said Turco: "Until [Tuesday], we were always planning on going back to San Jose."

Sweeps do not just happen in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

OK, a little less giddy considering a chance for the sweep. The Stars were up 1-0 and on the power play, which had been pretty good for them this postseason.

Looking at Sharks coach Ron Wilson's face behind the bench told their story. He looked to have a whole lot of frustration and a little bit of give-up, as did his team. All of them looked just about ready to tip their cap and congratulate the Stars for it just being their year.

A not-so-funny thing happened en route to this ending. Sharks captain Patrick Marleau swiped an errant pass by Stars defenseman Sergei Zubov and scored a short-handed goal.

What are the odds of uttering that sentence in back-to-back games?

200 to 1?

1,000 to 1?

One billion to one?

"He stole Zubov's pass," Wilson said, "and made him pay."

And San Jose made Dallas pay for that wicked case of undisciplined it came down with in Game 4. The stupid was out in full force, with the Stars committing six penalties. None of them particularly good.

"We had five stick penalties and one over the boards," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "The aftereffects of it were huge, because you are taxing a lot of players who kill penalties."

Nor did it help that one of their best penalty killers, Stu Barnes, was out with a rung bell. Or a head injury.

I bumped into him in the hall, not literally, and he seemed optimistic yet noncommittal for Game 5. The Stars need him. They need everybody. Because the Sharks have a history of stringing together victories.

Eleven down the stretch.

Twenty with a point.

The penalty that came back to bite the Stars was Mike Modano's delay of game. Milan Michalek scored the goal that you could smell coming from a mile away.

Somebody, somewhere will probably note this is a microcosm of this Stars season. Sweep does not fit their modus operandi. They do not do anything the easy way.

Just look at March.

This is why nobody outside of the local jockosphere gave the Stars a snowball's chance in you-know-where of winning this series and why a 3-1 series lead is nothing to get too bent about.

"Don't get me wrong, we are happy to be in this position, but it is far from over," Robidas said. "We still have one more game to win, and that will be the toughest and we have to be up for the challenge.

"They are not going to give up and we have to be ready."

Say this for the Sharks, they did not pull a Mavericks.

They are fighting until the bitter end and refuse to go quietly. They are thinking how if they get back to Cali and win then, really, they only need one win back here.

But the Cali air may do the Stars well.

They can get away from the second-hand choke in the AAC air.

CLOSING OUT

The last two times the Stars have had a chance to end a series, they have lost. A look at the last five times the Stars have had a chance to close out a series: