Texas Stars Advance to Conference Finals

ROSEMONT, Ill. – There was a reason that the Dallas Stars sent rookie Jamie Benn to their AHL affiliate Texas Stars; it was to get post season experience and what an experience it has been as Benn scored the series winner in a classic battle in overtime to defeat the Chicago Wolves 6-5. Prior to this game, the Wolves were 6-0 all time in AHL winner-take-all series games.
“The puck just got caught up in Chelios’ skate,” Benn said. “Me and Sceviour had some good pressure on him, threw (the puck) at the net, got a lucky goal, but a big one for us obviously. We showed a lot of character in the game coming back three or four times. It was a great series and you have to give them a lot of credit.”
 
The Stars put a 53-shot barrage on Drew MacIntyre who could not repeat his shutout appearance from the previous game. The Stars out shot the Wolves 24-6 in the third and overtime periods. The Wolves were able to get five goals on the 29 shots they had on Matt Climie, who has seen limited play in the playoffs.
 
“We just had some bad positioning, but give them some credit,” Chicago Wolves Head Coach Don Lever said. “They were like horses in the second period and they came out the same way in third and we just didn’t react at all. We weren’t getting any breaks either. You get only one power play in the whole game. That has been the way for the two series with us. Our guys tried their best and it came down to a one game crap shoot and their best player won the game for them.”
 

The game looked great for the Wolves as they quickly got on the board with a two goal lead in to begin the game. Right wing Spencer Machacek scored the first of his two goals of the game with a wraparound that got in by Climie’s left side 3:22 into the game. Just a minute later, left wing Brett Sterling recovered a rebound in front and battle forward until a shot gave the Wolves a 2-0 lead.
 
But that lead was short-lived, and I do mean short. Thirty-three seconds after the Sterling goal, the Wolves turned the puck over. Landon Wilson skated up the ice and passed the puck to center Travis Morin who got the goal. Twenty seconds later, MacIntyre made a save but the rebound was short and ended up in front of Scott McCulloch for his first goal of the playoffs.
 
This was a good example of how the Wolves defense played all night. It was non-existent around their goaltender who had no support for most of the game which explains why the Stars had an old-fashioned shootout in front of the Chicago net.
 
Chicago got one of the goals back in the period with a man short. Machacek poked at the puck in the neutral zone and went around a defender and skated freely on in to give the Wolves a 3-2 lead at the end of the first.
 
In the second the Wolves got their two-goal lead back. Joey Crabb and Tim Stapleton rushed towards the net and Stapleton got the centering pass in past Climie 2:16 into the period.
 
Texas continued their two-step dance on the Wolves as center Aaron Gagnon received an outlet pass from Trevor Ludwig and went forehand, backhand, forehand in to complete the scoring after two frames.
 
Defenseman Maxime Fortunus fired a wicked shot from the far-side of the blue line that floated in on MacIntyre to knot the score again with four goals apiece at 4:09. “We came out with a little bit of a slow start,” Fortunus said. “But in our heads we knew it wasn’t over. My shot was kind of a fluky shot that just went by the goalie.” The Wolves got the lead back as Wolves captain Jason Krog collected the puck facing away from the Texas net but then was able to look-away and backhand a the puck in off the crossbar. Andrew Hutchinson netted another one-timer to end the 60 minutes tied at five.
 
The Stars battled hard in overtime and Jamie Benn was able to whip a shot in just barely past a scrum to send Texas to the Western Conference Finals. It was Benn’s eighth goal of the playoffs and fifth of the series. “Our motto going into the game was character will prevail,” Texas Stars head Coach Glen Gulutzan said. “The resiliancy and elasticity to hold together all stems from character and that’s what (we) had tonight. We used our entire bench and they worked their tails off.”
The Stars will now face the Hamilton Bulldogs for the Western Conference Title. The Bulldogs, ironically, were coached by Lever and eventually won a Calder Cup Championship a couple of years back.
 
Three Stars of the game: Maxime Fortunus ( Texas), the number Three Star with a goal and 2 assists; Spencer Machacek ( Chicago), the number Two Star with two goals; and Jamie Benn who closed out the series with the game-winner who also had a hat-trick in a previous game in this series.
 
Contact the author at matt.chin@prohockeynews.com
Contact mitch.cooper@prohockeynews.com
Video highlights of game.