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Red Wings on the verge of reaching Stanley Cup Finals

May 14, 2008 - 12:58 PM Detroit at Dallas 8:00 pm EDT Western Conference finals Red Wings lead, 3-0

DALLAS (Ticker) - With Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg now leading the way, the Detroit Red Wings are one win away from the Stanley Cup Finals.

Datsyuk and Zetterberg will look to lead the Red Wings to their 10th straight postseason victory Wednesday when they go for the sweep of the Dallas Stars in Game Four of the Western Conference finals.

Finalists for the Selke Trophy, Datsyuk and Zetterberg combined for four goals and six points as the top-seeded Red Wings took a commanding lead in the series with the fifth-seeded Stars by posting a 5-2 triumph Monday in Game Three.

Datsyuk recorded a hat trick for the first time in his career - regular season or playoffs.

"(I) tried to skate more, go deep in the zone, make the defensemen turn," Datsyuk said of his hat trick. "Tried to go to the net and shoot everything on (goaltender Marty) Turco. Actually, today I had three good passes, used the chances."

Jiri Hudler also scored and defenseman Brian Rafalski notched a pair of assists for Detroit, which grabbed a three-games-to-none advantage in the best-of-seven series.

Osgood made 16 saves in improving to 9-0 this postseason for the Red Wings, who have won a franchise-record nine straight playoff games. Detroit previously won eight in a row in both 1952 and 1995.

"It was a total team effort," Osgood said. "Everybody has a job and they relish doing it. We have a game plan and we stick to it. We stay composed more than we did in the past."

Since taking over for six-time Vezina Trophy winner Dominik Hasek in Game Four of the conference quarterfinals against Nashville, Osgood has posted a 1.47 goals-against average and a .939 save percentage - both league bests this postseason.

"He was our best goalie all year," Babcock said of Osgood. "He won the most games, he played really, really well. And he played well last year. Ever since he's worked on his butterfly, he's been back to being a real good goalie. You've got to give the guy a lot of credit for re-inventing himself. He's now back at the top of his game."

Rookie blue-liner Nicklas Grossman and Brad Richards tallied for Dallas, which has failed to register more than 21 shots in any game of this series while allowing an average of 29 shots.

"Belief is what we have," Turco said. "We've won four games (in a row) plenty of times, and we're not going to focus and rely on bounces and hoped-fors. There's only one way to do this, and that's just make it happen. It's going to be a tall order, but one at a time."

"This team has battled and been resilient all year, and we're not changing a thing," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "We'll got to practice (Tuesday) and we'll practice and gear up for Game Four and come and compete our hardest and see if we can win a game."

Dallas has a tough task against this season's Presidents' Trophy winners. Only two teams have overcome a three-games-to-none deficit - the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, who accomplished the feat against Detroit in the Finals, and the 1975 New York Islanders in the quarterfinals.