Jennifer Floyd Engel 
Young line comes through for Stars
DETROIT -- “Just don’t lose it too cleanly.”
This was the inner workings of Stars center Toby Petersen’s brain as he skated into the circle for a faceoff against Henrik Zetterberg with 57.4 seconds remaining in Game 5.
Did I mention Dallas was clinging to a one-goal lead?
No big deal, right? Just the Stars season and goalie Marty Turco’s sanity riding on a March call up from Iowa handling one of the best players in the world.
Petersen and his “Iowa Stars” line delivered yet again, helping finish a 2-1 victory that Marty had almost single-handedly willed them to on Saturday. And Marty was so unbelievably good.
He had hoisted this banged-up, left-for-eliminated team upon his shoulders and carried them to within 58 second of forcing a Game 6 in Dallas. He had earned his first victory at “The Joe”.
Unfortunately, this is when ugly usually happens for him in this building: a weird bounce, a breakdown and another round of “Marty has a monkey on his back” talk. Into this emotional baggage stepped Petersen and his equally young, inexperienced linemates – Louis Eriksson and Joel Lundqvist – to try to stop Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Lidstrom, et al, from finding a way against this Stars team yet again.
They never even got a shot on Marty. Not one.
And just like that, thanks in part to a trio of kids, years and years of playoff futility were erased for both Marty and this Stars team in this building and a West Finals that once looked destined for a broom seems to be careening towards a Game 7.
“One of the advantages of having guys who are young and haven’t had any playoff experience is we don’t know we’re not supposed to win in this building,” Petersen said.
Why the Stars won was Marty. He is why there is a Game 6 on Monday, why Dallas has a real chance of being the first team in 33 years to come back from down 0-3 in a series.
I stand by my “whoever wins Game 5, wins this series” prediction. Especially if this Marty comes to play.
Forget Red Wings coach Mike Babcock’s dismissive “he made some saves” crack about Marty afterward. A bunch of the really big variety were included in his 38 stops.
Few were bigger than his stop of Dan Cleary 71 seconds in.
It was one of those shots that would be impossible to fault Marty if he didn’t couldn’t stop, but one he absolutely had to stop if the Stars were going to have a chance.
He had to be magical.
And when he went post to post to stymie Cleary, Marty sent a message to his teammates that he was not going to lose to Detroit again, in this building.
“God, first one here, I mean huge,” Mike Ribeiro said. “He kept us in most of the game. He was ready for it.”
Marty also assisted on both Stars goals, although, the score sheet only credits him for his slick pass to Lundqvist that led to his game-winning goal.
What is forgotten is Marty also started the rush on Trevor Daley’s goal to open scoring by being him. He was halfway to the blue line to prevent a breakaway and, rather than quickly chipping it out, he threaded a pass to Niklas Hagman who found Brad Richards who slid a SportsCenter-highlight, between-his-legs pass to Trevor Daley for a 1-0 lead.
“I haven’t played well in this building in a long time, so yeah, you get disappointed that you are not yourself or haven’t played like yourself,” Marty said. “And this was one, not just for me, but for our franchise, we needed. We needed a gutty effort from everybody.”
What is crazy is this victory was possible without much help from Brad and the Mikes.
Imagine what might happen if Richards, Mo and Ribeiro join Petersen in leaving their fingerprints all over this series. Because guess which of the four centers logged the most minutes Saturday?
Yep, Petersen.
Let that sink in for a second, the Stars second best player in Game 5 was a guy who spent most of this season in Iowa. He and his line played a pretty big role in winning Game 4, too, handling checking duties on Detroit’s best line.
They have been playing way above their pay scale.
Still as good as “The Iowa Stars” had been so far, I have to imagine they were not the group Tip wanted on the ice for a faceoff in their own zone with 57.4 seconds remaining and a one-goal lead.
He had no choice. The Stars could not change because there had been an icing. This is how Petersen, Eriksson and Lundqvist found themselves charged with helping Marty evict what had become an 800-pound gorilla from his back.
He admitted before Game 5 that “I can’t say I’ve wanted anything more in my career” and Petersen, Eriksson and Lundqvist were well aware of everything riding on this shifted as they skated back out there for that faceoff.
“You try not to think too much,” Lundqvist said.
Unless you are Petersen. Then all you do is think.
Just don’t lose it too cleanly.
“Unfortunately, I lost it but at least I got a piece of him to give our guys time to get out there,” he said, “and not let them get a one timer or something.”
Or something is what usually happens to the Stars at “The Joe”.
What happened Saturday was something else, a little hint that Marty may be back Wednesday and this time he’s not bringing his monkey.
