Ducks Fall Into Dallas’ Trap, 4-0

Stars--even the slumping ones--have been giving the Stars a lot of problems recently.

Vancouver’s Pavel Bure, who had only eight goals in 21 games, scored a hat trick against Dallas. St. Louis’ Brett Hull, scoreless in six games, had a four-point night at Reunion Arena. Pittsburgh’s Jaromir Jagr, with five goals in 20 games against other teams, scored twice against the Stars.

But Teemu Selanne, who had scored 19 times in the previous 13 games, wasn’t a factor against Dallas’ neutral-zone trap Sunday as the Stars defeated the Mighty Ducks, 4-0, in front of an announced crowd of 17,174 at the Pond.

Dallas Coach Ken Hitchcock says Selanne can “sniff out [scoring chances] better than anyone in the world,” but it was the Stars’ Mike Modano who was in the right place at the right time Sunday. Modano assisted on two short-handed goals that broke the spirit of the sagging Ducks.

“We beat ourselves tonight,” defenseman J.J. Daigneault said. “Five on five, we played pretty well in the defensive zone, but obviously our power play killed us.”

Dallas’ two short-handed goals might have been the daggers that brought down the Ducks, but it was the Stars’ trap that was killing them softly and slowly.

“You have to give them credit,” Selanne said. “They played very smart. They had a good game plan and they made it work. There was no room out there. They were very patient.

“Even when they get ahead by one or two goals, you have to be as patient as they are. You open up the game and they’ll take advantage of your turnovers.”

The Stars, one of the NHL’s best road teams at 8-3-2, scored a short-handed goal and four power-play goals in Saturday’s 5-1 victory over the Kings.

“These are two teams right there, knocking on our door, getting close to us in the standings,” said Modano, who has more career points (29) against the Ducks than any other player. “It’s been a big weekend for us.”

Sunday, the Stars jumped to a 1-0 lead at 14:23 of the first period after a penalty for too many men on the ice. Modano, who leads the league with five short-handed points, carried the puck up the left wing and slipped a pass to Sergei Zubov.

Zubov’s slap shot deflected off a diving Ruslan Salei and bounded over the shoulder of Duck goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov, who was making his second consecutive start for the first time this season.

Dallas went ahead, 2-0, when Joe Nieuwendyk back-handed a rebound into the net at 2:38 of the second period after a shot by Zubov from the high slot.

Fifteen minutes later--after Bob Errey had been sent off for elbowing--Modano was back working short-handed magic. He stole a pass from Daigneault along the boards, spun and fired a pass to Jere Lehtinen in the slot. Lehtinen’s blast into the top right corner easily beat Shtalenkov to increase the Stars’ lead to 3-0.

Grant Marshall finished the scoring at 18:49 of the third period when Duck rookie Matt Cullen lost the puck along the boards and then got it back, only to slide a pass right onto the stick of Marshall, who sent another missile past Shtalenkov.

“I think maybe we talked so much about that trap that we may have psyched ourselves out,” Duck Coach Pierre Page said. “That system is very frustrating and it can make you look very bad. We’ve practiced hard to beat it, but we just didn’t seem to know what to do.”

Modano finished one shot shy of the record for a Duck opponent with 10 shots on goal. Dallas goalie Ed Belfour turned away 31 mostly harmless Duck shots to pick up his fourth shutout of the season. Belfour is unbeaten in nine road games (7-0-2).

The Ducks have managed only one point in the last four games.

“We’ve got to get ahold of ourselves and bounce back,” Page said. “We’ve got about 48 hours before we play in San Jose [Tuesday night]. We’ve got to rekindle the fire. We get excited, then we forget to put wood on the fire.”

The Stars, meanwhile, are relishing making their opponents do a slow burn while trying to beat their trap.

“Our team game is on the front burner again,” Hitchcock said.