Game Recap

DALLAS 1, DETROIT 0 DETROIT (Ticker) -- Brenden Morrow ended a frustrating day with a smile on his face. Morrow snapped a scoreless tie with 3:57 remaining and Ed Belfour recorded his league-leading fourth shutout as the Dallas Stars blanked the Detroit Red Wings, 1-0, for their fifth straight road win in the series. After breaking both of his game sticks during the morning skate, Morrow was denied twice on solid scoring chances by goaltender Manny Legace. But he ended a nine-game goal-scoring drought when he took a pass from Jamie Langenbrunner and beat Legace from the slot for his fifth of the season and second game-winner. "There was a turnover," Morrow said. "Joe (Nieuwendyk) gave it to Jamie. He was taking it wide and threw it to the net. The defenseman found Joe and nobody picked me up coming into the slot. It went off my shin pad, found the tape on my stick and I found the back of the net." "It must have hit somebody because it shot more to the slot," said Legace. "He kind of flubbed it and it went underneath my blocker. If he'd shot it hard, who knows." As for his new stick, Morrow added, "A couple of guys thought it would be funny to slap my sticks around and I broke a couple of them on shots. I had to make up a couple of new ones. One of them happened to have a goal in it." Belfour stopped 33 shots and posted his third shutout in six games this month. He leads all active goaltenders with 53. "It was a real strong win for us. I had a few breaks, but I saw the puck well," Belfour said. Legace made 29 saves for the Red Wings, who had a four-game unbeaten streak snapped and fell to 0-5-1 in their last six home meetings with Dallas. Detroit was without defenseman Chris Chelios, who was experiencing soreness in his left knee. "You battle that hard all game and you lose on a late goal. If that's going to happen, you hope it's early in the third period so you have 20 minutes to battle back," Legace said. "It's disheartening." Belfour made 17 saves in the second period but may have saved his best for the third, when he stopped Nicklas Lidstrom's drive from the left point and denied former Star Pat Verbeek on the rebound. "I tried to stretch as far left as I could and I got the pad on it," Belfour said. Dallas did not get a shot for the first seven minutes of the game. With 11:01 left in the opening period, Legace made a deft pokecheck to break up Nieuwendyk's partial breakaway. Detroit had chances in the second period. Sergei Fedorov was stopped off a 2-on-1 with 15 minutes remaining, 4 1/2 minutes before Doug Brown's shot from the slot hit the goalpost. The Red Wings hit another post with 7 1/2 minutes to go in the period on Boyd Devereaux's deflection. Morrow had two solid chances before getting the game-winner. He was denied off a 2-on-1 when Legace kicked out his right pad early in the second period, then got stopped again early in the third. "I had two great chances. After the first, Hitch (coach Ken Hitchcock) told me we have to get up on this guy. On the second, I didn't and he stoned me with the right leg again," Morrow said. "On the third, I got lucky. It kind of bounced off his stick." Detroit was shut out for the first time since a scoreless deadlock at St. Louis last April 1. "They're two good teams, so you knew it was going to be a hard-fought battle," Legace said. "In the end, unfortuantely, they got the good bounce in the slot. One goal, you don't expect that in a game like this." ----------------------------- Dallas 0 0 1--1 Detroit 0 0 0--0 ----------------------------- FIRST PERIOD -- Scoring: None. Penalties: Fischer, Det (holding), 12:15. SECOND PERIOD -- Scoring: None. Penalties: Modano, Dal (hooking), 0:26; Draper, Det (Obstr tripping), 13:04; Hull, Dal (roughing), 14:10; Fischer, Det (roughing), 17:04. THIRD PERIOD -- Scoring: 1, Dallas, Morrow 5 (Langenbrunner, Nieuwendyk), 16:03. Penalties: Keane, Dal (hooking), 8:56. Shots on goal: --------------------------------- Dallas 12 8 10--30 Detroit 9 17 7--33 --------------------------------- Power-play Conversions: Dal - 0 of 3, Det - 0 of 3. Goalies: Dallas, Belfour (33 shots, 33 saves; record: 8-5-3). Detroit, Legace (30, 29; record: 7-2-1). A:19,995. Referees: P Devorski, Ohalloran. Linesmen: Nelson, Mitton.