Welcome to TBO.com. Skip directly to: our Keyword Search, Section Navigation, Content.

TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Sports

TBO > Sports

Red Wings Roll Into Finals

The Associated Press

Published: May 20, 2008

DALLAS - Dominant in the regular season, superb again in the postseason, the Detroit Red Wings are headed back to the Stanley Cup finals.

With gusto, too.

Just when the Red Wings lost consecutive games and were starting to look vulnerable, they bounced back strong in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals, getting first-period goals from Kris Draper, Pavel Datsyuk and Dallas Drake on their way to knocking out the Dallas Stars 4-1 on Monday night.

Now Detroit goes from worrying about becoming the third team to blow a 3-0 series lead to trying to win its fourth championship in 11 seasons. The Red Wings will face the Pittsburgh Penguins, with the first two games at Joe Louis Arena. The series opens Saturday, with the schedule following a Saturday-Monday-Wednesday pattern.

Detroit will be the home team because it had more regular-season points - most in the league, in fact. The Red Wings are the first recipient of the Presidents' Trophy to play for the Cup since they did so in 2002. That also was the last time they were in the finals.

Red Wings goalie Chris Osgood improved to 10-2 this postseason. It was his 100th career playoff game and his 55th victory - his 48th for Detroit, passing Hall of Famer Terry Sawchuk for the team record.

Detroit's walloping knockout punch shouldn't have been a surprise. The Red Wings beat Nashville 3-0 to end the opening round, then crushed Colorado 8-2 to end the second round.

Detroit	3	1	0	-	4
Dallas	0	0	1	-	1

First Period-1, Detroit, Draper 3 (Drake, Stuart), 3:45. 2, Detroit, Datsyuk 9 (Lidstrom, Zetterberg), 11:41 (pp). 3, Detroit, Drake 1 (Lebda, Samuelsson), 16:17. Penalties-McCarty, Det (cross-checking), 8:44; Daley, Dal (hooking), 10:49; Stuart, Det (interference), 17:52; Filppula, Det (tripping), 19:23; Winchester, Dal (roughing), 19:23.

Second Period-4, Detroit, Zetterberg 11, 3:11 (sh). Penalties-McCarty, Det (interference), 2:21; Lilja, Det (tripping), 6:44; McCarty, Det (interference), 10:04; Barch, Dal (hooking), 13:13; Kronwall, Det (hooking), 15:46.

Third Period-5, Dallas, Robidas 3 (Ribeiro, Richards), 2:27 (pp). Penalty-Kronwall, Det (tripping), 1:22.

Shots on Goal-Detroit 13-9-7-29. Dallas 6-7-16-29. Power-play opportunities-Detroit 1 of 2; Dallas 1 of 7. Goalies-Detroit, Osgood 10-2 (29 shots-28 saves). Dallas, Turco 10-8 (29-25). A-18,584 (18,532). T-2:18.