Exactly.
That is exactly what I've been looking for out of these Stars since, oh, I don't know.... 2003? That was the kind of "I will kill him!"(*), epic, "You can't handle the truth" momentous game that defines a team/era. That was Brendan Morrow saying, "This is MY team, and we're going where I SAY we're going." That was Marty saying, "You don't die until I give you permission!"
[(*) For you Dune fans out there, think of the line by Sting in the first movie adaptation. Obviously, with a better end result for the speaker.]
And what is really great about it was that we took that proverbial shot in the mouth I mentioned after Game Three of the Sharks series - quite a few, in fact - and just smiled that evil smile and kept on trucking. Sort of like something out of Heavy Metal. And it was glorious.
That is the sort of game that binds a team, binds a fanbase, binds a city. "We few, we happy few."
That was the magic that every player fights for, every fan dreams about. And it happened right here.
Mad and major props to San Jose - gone are the fears that we would enter the next round without the confidence knowing that we could take a hit. Interestingly, same as it was at the end of the regular season. They shook off the first three games and played like madmen. And against a lesser team, it just might have been good enough.
But they were playing the Stars, and it wasn't. Sixty two shots weren't enough. More Toronto-review-madness wasn't enough. Knocking Stu Barnes out of the lineup in Game Three wasn't enough. All the great play they had - especially in the third period - wasn't enough.
Because Marty Turco, Brendan Morrow and their band of brothers said it wasn't.
"Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire" was what I said after Game Three in this series. In retrospect, it was a bit premature/inaccurate because after watching Marty and Nabokov go toe to toe, that was worth the price of admission. Damn. If you're a fan of hockey - hell, if you're a fan of sports - and you haven't seen the OT from that game Sunday/Monday, it is required viewer-ship. That was as epic as Belfour/Roy. Talk about broadsides at 20 yards! Some have compared it to the old Michael Jordan/Larry Bird McDonald's commercials, but the more I think about it, it sure was more like Ali-Foreman. Widow-maker after widow-maker to the jaw of the other team - "You think you just made the play to end this marathon? Go away, little boy, and take your toys with you."
And in the end, it was the grinders, the workers, the gritty, gutsy, ballsy guys who got it done - Robidas and Morrow. Should it really surprise people that those two took pucks to the face in these playoffs and kept playing? That is was that kind of player that made the winning play in the seventh period of play (essentially, the beginning of a third consecutive hockey game)? It shouldn't be. Just like it was players like Mike Keane who did it for the Stars in 1999. I love players like Ribero and Richards - I really do. But at the end of the day, when it is in the deep dark of night, it is the tough guys who get the job done.
It takes a team. It takes all the moving parts. In that sense, I'm not taking anything away from Modano, etc. Everyone played their part. But the Difference Makers are the guys who keep their heads when the race turns out to be over twice as lo
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8 months ago
FYI - this article was written by Kevin Lindstrom. Kevin is a guest writer at the Dallas Stars Podcast, and the drummer and part of the leadership committee for the Dallas Stars Havoc Fanatics.
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