Hockey News

The Manitoba Moose, the AHL affiliate of the Vancouver Canucks, announced the Dallas stars have signed defenceman Maxime Fortunus.

Fortunus, 25, appeared in 65 games last season with the Moose where he scored eight goals and 13 assists for 21 points and 28 penalty minutes, including three game-winning goals (Mar. 9/08 @ Hamilton, Mar. 20/08 vs. San Antonio, & Apr. 13/08 @ Toronto). In six Calder Cup playoff games last year, the La Prairie, PQ native collected an assist. Last year, Fortunus won the Dundee Wealth Management Award as the team’s top defenceman. In 213 career games with the Moose over three seasons, Fortunus scored 13 goals and 41 assists for 54 points and 128 penalty minutes. In 2006-07, he won the team’s Toyota Never Quits Hardest Working Player Award and in 2005-06, he was co-winner of the team’s Blue Cross Unsung Hero Award. In 32 career Calder Cup playoff games with the Moose, Fortunus has one goal and five assists for six points and 24 penalty minutes.

(more…)

DALLAS (AP) -The Dallas Stars know all about Sean Avery - his history of mouthing off to teammates as well as foes, that he’s a two-time NHL leader in penalty minutes whose agitating tricks included a “bush league” stunt in the playoffs that the league quickly banned.

The way Stars co-general manager Brett Hull sees it: What’s there not to like?

Dallas signed the pesky forward to a $15.5 million, four-year deal Wednesday, a commitment that also pushes the Stars close enough to the salary cap that they probably won’t chase more high-profile free agents.

(more…)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -The Blue Jackets traded enigmatic offensive star Nikolai Zherdev and center Dan Fritsche to the New York Rangers for defensemen Christian Backman and Fedor Tyutin on Wednesday.

Zherdev gives the Rangers one of the NHL’s best one-on-one players, but also a Russian right winger who has frequently fallen into disfavor with management and teammates. He had a career-high 61 points last season with 26 goals and 35 assists, second on the Columbus team to captain Rick Nash.

(more…)

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

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.

(more…)

DALLAS - The Detroit Red Wings aren’t really going to blow this - are they?

Just a few days ago, the Red Wings were still in a span of being undefeated for almost a month, owning the NHL’s longest post-season winning streak in 15 years and doing it with flair. Three games into the Western Conference final, they hadn’t even trailed the Dallas Stars for a single second. All they had to do was win once more to seal a spot in the Stanley Cup final.

(more…)

DETROIT (AP) -Johan Franzen and Tomas Holmstrom stand in front of the net, distracting goaltenders and tipping pucks past them as well as any NHL player.

The Dallas Stars plan on helping Marty Turco by getting the pair of Detroit Red Wings out of the way Saturday night in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals.

The problem is, teams have been trying to do that with Franzen for two months and Holmstrom for three years since the league made it tougher to clear out such powerful pests.

(more…)

DALLAS - As strange as it sounds, the Dallas Stars might have preferred staying on the West Coast even though they are coming home with a 2-0 series lead.

It’s San Jose that instead really needed to escape the Shark Tank.

What about home-ice advantage? Well, there doesn’t seem to be any whenever the Sharks and Stars play, whether in the regular season or the playoffs. The home team has won three of the past 16 games dating to last season.

(more…)

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -Defenseman Sergei Zubov returned to the Dallas Stars’ lineup Sunday night after missing more than three months with a sports hernia.

Zubov, a 15-season veteran who won Stanley Cups with the New York Rangers and Dallas, returned to workouts with the Stars last week, but wasn’t cleared to play until moments before Game 2 of the Stars’ second-round playoff series with the San Jose Sharks.

Zubov had four goals and 31 assists in 46 games this season, but the injury has sidelined the 37-year-old defenseman since he played in a game at San Jose on Jan. 17. He underwent surgery on his hernia in Germany earlier in the month.

(more…)

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Their dressing room is small and spare, and the teal-coloured crowd despises them. Yet the Dallas Stars feel right at home these days in the Shark Tank.

Even when they gave up a tying goal late in regulation Friday night, the Stars seemed more comfortable and capable than their hosts. Brenden Morrow then proved it with a game-winner that got Dallas off to another fine playoff start.

Morrow scored his second goal 4:39 into overtime, and the Stars opened their second-round series with a 3-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks.

(more…)

After knocking off the defending champion Anaheim Ducks, the Dallas Stars are now looking like Stanley Cup contenders as they get set to face the deep and talented San Jose Sharks in the second round of NHL playoffs.

In the East, the New York Rangers emerged as a contender with a five-game pasting of the New Jersey Devils in the first round, but must stop Sidney Crosby and the red-hot Pittsburgh Penguins.

Here’s a look at the Eastern and Western Conference semifinal matchups:

(more…)