When everything goes as wrong -- as it has for the Dallas Stars in these playoffs -- players often find comfort by referencing their good book. That's the one with all the clichés.
It makes sense when you think about it. There's not much you can mutter when going into a hostile building and trailing a series 3-0, other than the familiar "it isn't over until it's over" and "take things one game at a time."
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| Marty Turco's world seems to turn upside down in the playoffs. (AP) |
A couple of teams -– the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and 1975 New York Islanders –- won series they trailed three games to none. But it's a nearly impossible comeback and, judging from their play thus far, one the Stars seem incapable of engineering against the Colorado Avalanche.
The Stars haven't matched up well against the Avs, getting out-hustled, out-muscled and out-smarted, and hurting themselves by taking too many unnecessary penalties -– Colorado has scored on five of 19 power plays -- and failing to create enough scoring chances.
"I don't know if that's nerves or [being] scared to make mistakes," Stars captain Mike Modano told the Dallas Morning News. "You can sense a little tentativeness to our game."
Overall, this series has been a complete reversal of fortune for the Stars, who finished second in the West with a 112-point regular season, 17 points ahead of the Avs, who clinched the seventh seed only during the final weekend of play. But Dallas has looked like anything but the favorite in this series, in no small part due to another disappointing postseason from goalie Marty Turco.
Turco, one of the league's top goaltenders during the last three regular seasons, has now lost five consecutive playoff games and nine of his last 14 decisions while allowing 47 goals in that span. Since the 2003 playoffs, Turco is 7-13 with a .869 save percentage. Of the 15 goalies with at least 10 decisions in that span, Turco has the lowest save percentage and second-worst record.
He has struggled enough to make it likely that Dallas will start backup Johan Hedberg in Denver for Game 4, just to shake things up. That might be effective if the best players on the Stars were actually their best players these days, but they're not. Aside from Turco, big guns like Modano, Sergei Zubov, Jason Arnott and Bill Guerin have all but disappeared in this series, in sharp contrast to Colorado's key men Joe Sakic, Milan Hejduk and Rob Blake, who have been outstanding.
"The guys we count on have definitely come through," said Avs coach Joel Quenneville.
As a result, underdog Colorado has the Stars on the brink of elimination.
Two of Colorado's three wins came in overtime -- although neither was a game Dallas could say it deserved to win -- and the other was a blowout the Avs put together after falling behind two goals early in the opener.
At that point in the first game, Dallas looked like it might run away with things because Colorado's struggling goalie, Jose Theodore, looked vulnerable, but the Avs have protected him by limiting the shooting lanes and blocking a lot of shots. Dallas hasn't offered the same support to Turco, and the Stars defense has been overwhelmed not only by the speed of Colorado's forwards, but by several of its defensemen who have pinched up into the play repeatedly and created pressure in the offensive zone.
