NHL & Minor Leagues » 03.05.2002

St. Louis vs Detroit 0:1

Hasek makes 23 saves for shutout

DETROIT (AP) -- Red Wings goalie Dominik Hasek credited defense and a little luck for Detroit's win.
He neglected to mention his own part.
Hasek wowed the Joe Louis Arena crowd with many of his 23 saves as the Red Wings beat the St. Louis Blues 2-0 Thursday night in the opener of their Western Conference semifinal series.
It was the seventh playoff shutout for Hasek, a six-time Vezina Trophy winner still looking for his first Stanley Cup.
"They tried to be physical, but my defense did a very good job in front of me," Hasek said. "Twice on the power play, I think they hit the post. I was very lucky."
Brett Hull and Pavel Datsyuk scored for a Detroit team that played with much more focus than the one that dropped the first two games of its first-round series with Vancouver. The Red Wings rallied to win four straight in that series to earn a date with the Blues.
"The first game in the (Vancouver) series, the bounces didn't go our way. Tonight they did," Detroit coach Scotty Bowman said. "They had some shots from the point and some of them hit the crossbar or the posts, and that's what happens."
Game 2 in the best-of-seven series is Saturday afternoon in Detroit.
The Red Wings beat the Blues in their first three regular-season meetings, but St. Louis won both ends of a home-and-home series April 13-14. Those were the Blues' first regular-season wins over Detroit in nearly two years.
St. Louis coach Joel Quenneville said his team could have used some of the intensity shown by Detroit.
"I'd like to see a little more of an attitude to start the game. I didn't mind how the last part went," he said of a last-minute brawl triggered after the Blues' Keith Tkachuk bumped Hasek. "I think the game finished up with a little more emotion, and I think that's what we've got to play with from start to finish."
Three players from each team drew 10-minute misconducts for the fight.
Bowman and Quenneville said the referees told them they didn't see contact between Tkachuk and Hasek, but Detroit captain Steve Yzerman saw it differently.
"We thought clearly that he got hit," Yzerman said. "Every goalie in the league, whenever they get touched they all go down like they're dead, so you never really know."
This is the teams' first playoff meeting in four years. The Red Wings ousted St. Louis in three consecutive series ending with the conference semifinals in 1998, the year they won their second consecutive Stanley Cup. The Blues have not taken a playoff series from Detroit since 1991.
Detroit took a 2-0 lead with 56 seconds left in the second period on Hull's second shorthanded goal of the playoffs.
With Sergei Fedorov off for slashing, Hull carried the puck in from deep inside his own zone with Steve Yzerman trailing down the right side. Hull's wrist shot dribbled off the leg of goalie Brent Johnson, but he hit the rebound into the net for his fourth playoff goal.
"You don't really set up to score shorthanded goals," Yzerman said. "They just kind of happen. But certainly that's a big goal for us."
The Red Wings opened the scoring at 12:20 of the first on Datsyuk's first career postseason goal. Datsyuk took a rebound off the sideboard, skated between two defenders to the inside of the left faceoff circle and flipped the puck over Johnson's left shoulder.
"He made a good shot. It was on his stick and off really quick," Johnson said. "He didn't have it on his stick for a second."
Datsyuk, scratched from the last two games of Detroit's series against Vancouver, led the Red Wings with seven points in the five regular-season games against St. Louis.
"We're glad for him because he has struggled with his confidence," Hull said. "The playoffs are different. The pressure is immense."

Game notes
Johnson, the grandson of Red Wings Hall of Famer Sid Abel, is 1-4 lifetime against Detroit. ... Datsyuk's was the first first-period goal allowed by the Blues in six playoff games. Hull and Nicklas Lidstrom are on three-game scoring streaks. ... Yzerman has 36 points (16 goals-20 assists) in 31 playoff games against St. Louis and 161 points (64-97) in 161 career playoff games.

Montreal vs. Carolina 0:1

Weekes notches second straight shutout

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Smart and patient -- that's the story of Ron Francis and the Carolina Hurricanes so far in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Francis scored his 42nd career postseason goal 3:49 into the final period and Kevin Weekes recorded his second straight shutout as the Hurricanes beat the Montreal Canadiens 2-0 Friday night to take the opening game of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Erik Cole sealed it with 2:18 left, scoring his third playoff goal.
"We're a forechecking hockey team. We're not very creative," defenseman Glen Wesley said. "We're not going to get too many 2-on-1 or 3-on-2 opportunities. But we saw the way we're capable of playing in the third period and that's getting pucks in deep and establishing our cycle game and taking pucks to the net. Sometimes it has to be ugly goals, but we continue to find ways to win."
And Francis continues to build his Hall of Fame resume. It's his second straight playoff game-winner and has Carolina in front of a second consecutive best-of-seven series.
"He is an amazing athlete," Wesley said. "He seems to find a way to get the job done. It's a privilege for everyone on this hockey team to be able to play with a guy like him."
Montreal outscored Boston 10-2 in the third period of its first-round series and goalie Jose Theodore had a save percentage of .986. But Francis was able to tip a Niclas Wallin shot past the goalie early in the third and Weekes made it stand up, stopping 25 shots in just his third postseason start.
"Just playing this game is a lot of fun," said Weekes, who hasn't given up a goal in 136 minutes. "I remember as a 6-year-old, the first book I wrote was saying that I wanted to play in the National Hockey League. It's something I've been able to achieve and every day I live a dream. I'm a rink rat at heart."
Theodore had just made a spectacular diving stick save on rookie Jaroslav Svoboda five seconds before Wallin left his shot fly from 10 feet inside the blue line and Francis deflected it between the legs of Theodore.
"He made some saves in the second period and we were starting to wonder a little bit," Francis said of being able to beat Theodore, who has been nominated for the Hart Trophy as league MVP. "It was a credit to our guys to keep battling and find a way to get the job done."
Wallin, a healthy scratch in 29 games this season, is playing because defenseman David Tanabe is out with a broken wrist.
Game 2 is Sunday night at Carolina.
"We knew they could be physical," said Montreal's Gino Odjick, whose club was outhit 33-20. "They beat the New Jersey Devils and that's one of the better teams in the league. That told everybody in the league how good the Hurricanes were."
The second period was filled with missed scoring chances -- mostly by the Hurricanes.
Yanic Perreault hit the crossbar 1:03 into the period, but it was all Carolina after that as the Hurricanes fired 19 shots on Theodore.
The best opportunity came six minutes in when a shot from the left point by Marek Malik bounced off the shoulder of Theodore and rolled behind him. However, Cole fanned on his attempted tip-in and the Montreal goalie was able to recover and keep the puck from going over the line with his blocker.
It didn't take long for the series to heat up between former division rivals.
Less than five minutes in, Carolina's Jeff O'Neill took a five-minute checking-from-behind penalty and a game misconduct when he rammed Montreal defenseman Sheldon Souray from behind along the side boards. Souray fell to the ice in pain and was helped off the ice -- he broke his hand in the collision -- as Carolina's leading goal scorer during the regular season was done for the night.
The hit left the Canadiens without two of their top defensemen. Patrice Brisebois didn't suit up after suffering a back injury in Game 6 of the Boston series.
But the Canadiens, who had scored six power-play goals in 27 chances against the Bruins, managed just two shots on Weekes over the five-minute span as Carolina's penalty-killers got the record standing-room-only crowd of 18,809 in an uproar with its stellar play.
Souray returned 30 seconds into the second period, but played just one shift after his shoulder injury.

Game notes
Carolina's Rod Brind'Amour played in his 100th career playoff game. ... Stephane Robidas, a team-worst minus-25 during the regular season, subbed for the injured Brisebois. ... The hit by O'Neill will automatically be reviewed by NHL officials for a possible suspension. ... Montreal has been outshot in six of its seven playoffs games. ... Carolina left wing Sami Kapanen, who had a career-high 27 goals during the regular season, has been shut out so far in the postseason.

von: ESPN.com

Mats

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