STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS : Toronto Rings Down Curtain in Chicago

It was closing night at Chicago Stadium.

The Toronto Maple Leafs ended a 65-year era with a 1-0 victory over the Blackhawks on Thursday night, clinching their first-round Western Conference playoff series, 4-2.

It sends the Maple Leafs into the conference semifinals and ends the season and tenancy in the venerable arena for Chicago, which moves into a new building across the street next season.

Felix Potvin stopped 27 shots as Toronto won a 1-0 game for the third time in the series. Mike Gartner had the only goal on a deflection in the first period.

“Anytime it’s a 1-0 game, you’ve got to feel good about yourself,” said Potvin, who had two of his three shutouts in the final two games.

“I’m happy about the way I played in this series. Hopefully we’ll keep it going next series. I don’t want to play 60 games like this, but it’s fun. Five of the six games were decided by one goal. It’s always like this in the playoffs.”

Toronto killed two Chicago power plays in the opening period, the second when Potvin made five saves, once smothering Joe Murphy’s rebound shot right in front.

The Maple Leafs went on a power play after Chicago was called for having too many men on the ice. Gartner was in front of the goal and deflected in Dave Ellett’s shot from just inside the blue line with 5:11 left in the period.

“It went in right off my leg,” Gartner said. “I got in front of the net and it went in off me. I’ve made a lot better shots than that this series that haven’t gone in the net.”

Detroit 7, San Jose 1--Goals by Sergei Fedorov, Steve Chiasson, Ray Sheppard and Vyacheslav Kozlov in the first period and Steve Yzerman in the second gave the Red Wings a 5-0 lead and they coasted in Detroit to tie the series, 3-3.

Dino Ciccarelli scored in the second and third periods for the Red Wings, giving him five goals in the series.

Detroit, which had the best record in the Western Conference and the fourth-best in the NHL, will play host to the seventh and deciding game Saturday night.

Vancouver 3, Calgary 2--Trevor Linden scored with less than four minutes left in overtime at Vancouver to enable the Canucks to tie their Western Conference series, 3-3.

The Flames’ Wes Walz, who had 11 goals during the regular season, scored his third goal of the series at 3:24 of the third period to tie the score, 2-2.

Game 7 is at Calgary on Saturday.