Senators, Ducks Advance to Second Round

Friday, April 20th 2007, 7:04 am

By: News On 6

After some quick work in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Ottawa Senators and Anaheim Ducks can look forward to some rest. The Vancouver Canucks blew their chance at a respite.

The Senators blanked Pittsburgh 3-0 to take their Eastern Conference series in five games. The Ducks also won in five, ousting Minnesota with a 4-1 win Thursday night.

Dallas beat Vancouver 1-0 in overtime to move within 3-2 in their series, which heads back to Texas for Game 6. And Calgary squared its series with Detroit at two games each with a 3-2 home win.

The Senators and Ducks joined the New York Rangers in the second round, one day after the Rangers swept Atlanta.

``I thought we stuck to the game plan for pretty much every game, really executed well and came out of it with not a lot of injuries,'' Ottawa goalie Ray Emery said. ``We're pretty healthy.''

Emery made 20 saves for his first playoff shutout, and Antoine Vermette and Chris Kelly each had a goal and an assist. The Senators, who have advanced past the second round just once over the past nine seasons and have never reached the Stanley Cup finals, shut down Pittsburgh's young stars.

In holding Sidney Crosby without a point for a second straight game, Ottawa brought a decisive end to the 19-year-old superstar's teenage years in the NHL. The league's youngest scoring leader ever with 120 points this season, Crosby totaled 222 points in his first two seasons with Pittsburgh.

``It was obviously a tough finish, but I think we exceeded a lot of expectations in the regular season and we'll have to learn from this,'' said Crosby, who had three goals and two assists through the first three games of the series.

Anaheim got an early goal from Chris Pronger, then Ryan Getzlaf scored the go-ahead goal on a power play late in the second period. Corey Perry added his first career playoff goal with 9:31 remaining, and Travis Moen capped the scoring with 57 seconds left.

Jean-Sebastien Giguere made 26 saves for Anaheim.

Giguere, sharp despite being out for the final three games of the regular season and the first three games of this series _ he played the closing minutes of Game 4 _ had been given time off to be with his wife and their son, who was born April 4 with an eye problem.

``It's been an emotional couple of weeks,'' Giguere said. ``A lot of things have happened. Just getting back in there and winning a hockey game was awesome. But I really can't take credit for this series.

``The guys did a great job and Bryz (Ilya Bryzgalov) played unbelievable in the first four games.''

The teams had a brief pushing match during warmups, with no officials on the ice. Each team's enforcer, the Wild's Derek Boogaard and the Ducks' George Parros, exchanged words, then players from both sides crowded to center ice. There was some yelling and pushing, but no punches thrown. The players eventually backed off.

Shortly thereafter, Selanne was struck by the puck and dropped to the ice. Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle said he didn't know where the puck came from.

``We don't know if it was off of one of our players or off the post or the glass,'' he said.

Stars 1, Canucks 0, OT

Brenden Morrow scored 6:22 into overtime and Marty Turco made 21 saves as visiting Dallas avoided being knocked out in five games for a third straight playoffs.

Roberto Luongo kept the Canucks alive early in overtime with a big glove stop on Mattias Norstrom's shot from the slot 1:46 in, and a shoulder save on Jeff Halpern from the same range 2 minutes later. But Vancouver took a penalty for too many men on the ice after a bad change, and the Stars' power play, which was 2-for-28 in the series, finally clicked.

Morrow cruised through the slot and deflected Sergei Zubov's point shot off Luongo, then up and over the goaltender and just into the net, ending the Stars' streak of six straight playoff overtime losses. Turco's second shutout of the series ended his own overtime losing streak that included two in this series alone, starting with a four-overtime marathon in Game 1.

Flames 3, Red Wings 2

Daymond Langkow scored twice, including the winner in the second period. Craig Conroy also scored for host Calgary and captain Jarome Iginla assisted on both of Langkow's goals.

Todd Bertuzzi and Johan Franzen replied for the Wings, who won the first two games at home before dropping the next two in Calgary. The Flames have to find a way to win in Detroit to pull off an upset of the top-seeded team in the Western Conference.

For the second straight game, Calgary's special teams and goaltending were better than Detroit's. The Flames scored two power-play goals on six chances while holding Detroit scoreless on six opportunities.

Calgary netminder Miikka Kiprusoff had to make tougher saves than Detroit's Dominik Hasek and stopped 33 of 35 shots. Hasek turned away 18 of 21 shots.