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Canucks push Stars to brink of elimination

Apr 18, 2007 - 5:22 AM DALLAS (Ticker) -- Same score, same result, and now the Vancouver Canucks have the Dallas Stars on the verge of playoff elimination.

Trevor Linden scored the go-ahead goal and defenseman Willie Mitchell preserved the lead with a sensational play to help the Canucks edge the Stars, 2-1, in their Western Conference quarterfinal series.

By winning their second straight 2-1 decision here, Vancouver grabbed a three-games-to-one lead and now heads home for a possible clincher in Game Five on Thursday night.

"It was a typical Dallas-Vancouver game. It was a hard-fought game by both teams from start to finish," Canucks coach Alain Vigneault said. "The penalty killing from both teams was very strong. The power plays were getting chances, but both goalies were making saves. Once again it goes to down to the last minutes of the game."

Mattias Ohlund scored a goal and goaltender Roberto Luongo made 26 saves as the Canucks sent Dallas to its sixth consecutive playoff defeat on its home ice.

Once again, it was a grueling loss for the Stars, who seemingly had tied the score with 2:29 to play when Mike Ribeiro drilled a shot that trickled through the pads of Luongo.

With the puck on edge and sliding over the goal line, Mitchell swooped in and swept the puck away just in time to keep the Canucks in front.

"It squeaked through Lu (Luongo) and I was just looking for a replay, and it was a good thing it was late in the period, if it was good ice, it might have gone over," Mitchell said. "The puck was probably half and half as far as half on the line, half over the line, and it's got to be all the way across, so I knew right away. I told the guys on the bench. You would have seen me go pretty nuts out there if they called that a goal."

"It was on the line, I think, but not enough," Ribeiro said. "We had a lot of power plays that we didn't score on, we need to be better and capitalize on those chances."

It was the third one-goal game of the series, including the four-overtime marathon won by Vancouver, 5-4, in Game One. That is no surprise since the teams played four 2-1 games during the regular season, with each winning twice.

The teams combined to go 0-for-11 on the power play, including a 5-on-3 for 1:55 that the Stars failed to capitalize on in the opening period.

"That didn't really help," Brenden Morrow said. "Marty gave us another opportunity to win tonight and we could have been down 4-0 if it wasn't for him. That 5-on-3 for almost two minutes was another situation where we didn't get it done."

After two scoreless periods, Ohlund pounced on a fortunate bounce to give the Canucks the lead with 10:14 left.

Bryan Smolinski took a shot from the right side that went wide of the net and caromed to Ohlund in the left faceoff circle. He one-timed it past Stars netminder Marty Turco, who seemed to briefly lose his footing scrambling across the crease.

"I didn't come far enough across and tried to make the desperation save, but couldn't get to it and it trickled through," Turco said.

Dallas responded just over 2 1/2 minutes later as Darryl Sydor took a perfect pass from Ladislav Nagy and beat Luongo with a slapper with 7:31 to go.

The tie lasted exactly two minutes as all three goals came in a span of 4:43.

Mitchell again was in the middle of a pivotal play, blasting a shot that Turco stopped with a skate save. The puck rolled out in front and Linden poked it into the right side of the net with 5:31 remaining.

"Willie Mitchell just made a great play to get it on net, and Marty was able to get a leg on it, he just kind of kicked it out, and I had a couple of people on me, but I was just able to bang it in," Linden said.

Turco, who had been in net for all six of the home playoff losses, had another strong game with 27 saves for Dallas. He has stopped 148 of 157 shots in the series.

"Marty's been playing great and if we want to get goals by him, we've got to do what we did tonight - rebounds, crash the net and stuff like that," Luongo said. "We got rewarded with two goals tonight."