DALLAS — Unlike the Avalanche, the Dallas Stars won’t be swept into the offseason.
Mike Modano’s power-play goal at 5:35 of the third period broke a tie, Brenden Morrow added an insurance goal at 14:34, and the Stars went on to take a 3-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings Wednesday night in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals at the American Airlines Center.
That ended the Wings’ postseason winning streak at nine games, cut the Detroit’s lead in the series to 3-1 and made necessary a Game 5 at Joe Louis Arena on Saturday.
It kept alive the Stars’ hopes of becoming the third team in NHL history to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series, and Dallas at least can cite the pattern — it happens every 33 years, as with the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and the 1975 New York Islanders.
In Game 4, Pavel Datsyuk seemed to have given the Red Wings a 1-0 lead on a power play at 7:34 of the second period when his shot from the right-wing circle made it into the net, but referee Kelly Sutherland quickly waved it off, ruling that Tomas Holmstrom had been in the crease as he screened goalie Marty Turco. Replays showed that wasn’t the case, but that call isn’t reviewable, so the game remained scoreless.
Loui Eriksson finally broke the scoreless tie at 19:37 of the second, when Chris Osgood made the initial save on a shot and Eriksson got there — in the crease, but going after the puck — to knock it past Osgood.
The Wings pulled even only 49 seconds into the third period, when Datsyuk intercepted a pass and passed to Henrik Zetterberg, who beat Turco from the left-wing circle.
