Modano finally makes difference for Dallas...barely

(Also posted by me on Bleacher Report.com)

Last spring featured one of those unbelievable playoff feats you'll never see again for a long time. A goalie gets his team three shutouts in a seven-game series, and they still lose.

That's right. That was Marty Turco getting three goose-eggs for the Dallas Stars in their first-round series against the Vancouver Canucks. However, Vancouver won Game Seven 4-1 (it was actually 2-1 until the Canucks scored two late empty-netters to make it seem like a blow-out), rendering Turco's achievements meaningless.

There was another story about that series. The top two draft picks in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft--the Stars' Mike Modano and the Canucks' Trevor Linden--were still playing. Modano looked like he still had it, as he had tallied his 500th career NHL goal and also became the career leading goal-scorer among American-born players just a month prior to the series. Meanwhile, Linden, who seemed to have been signed by management merely because of sentimental reasons, was long removed from being a dominant offensive threat, finishing with just 12 goals in 80 games.

But it was Linden who got the last laugh, potting the series-winner seven minutes into the third period in Game Seven, his second game-winning goal in a span of a week. Meanwhile, Modano was shut out in the finale, finishing with a disappointing two points for the series.

And those two teams hooked up again at GM Place last night, in what was Vancouver's 200th straight sellout at the building also known as The Garage. And it was the first game for both teams following the All-Star break. Radio color commentator Tom Larschied proclaimed before the game that Linden usually plays his best hockey in the second half of the season, seemingly promising big things for the ex-captain for the rest of the year.

But while Linden was shut out this time around, it was Modano who got a big goal for Dallas. Actually, it was more like a fluke, but they all count. Modano's slap shot from just inside the blue line early in the second stanza somehow eluded goaltender Curtis Sanford, who just waved at it. It gave Dallas a 2-1 lead, and the Stars would build a 4-1 cushion and hang on for a 4-3 victory.

For Modano, it was a big goal (and part of a two-point night), but let's not call it a clutch play. Had the Canucks' No. 1 goalie Roberto Luongo--who was still in Florida to be with his pregnant wife--been in net, that puck might not have gotten in. And though Modano has been productive this season (15 goals, 36 points, third in team scoring), he is also a dreadful -12, worst (by far) on the team.

For the Canucks, it was the seventh straight game in which the opposition scored first, and the sixth in a row in which they have not even had the lead at any point during the contest. Seventh place in the Western Conference with 57 points, just one more than three other teams battling for the final eighth spot. If the Canucks go on to miss the playoffs, they can lament Sanford waving at that Modano shot.

The Stars, battling for first in the Pacific Division--they have 63 points, same as the Sharks--can look at Modano's goal as a positive, the fact that they took advantage of a struggling Canucks team that was missing its top goalie.

Nine months after that playoff series between the two teams, it appears that the Stars are in much better shape. They can keep that going if they continue to get timely goals from their 500-goal man.