Stars have Turco to thank for their good fortune

DALLAS – As the third overtime turned to a fourth, more than an hour after Sunday night became Monday morning, Stars goaltender Marty Turco could think back to the other two NHL playoff marathons he played and what it was like afterward.

The dead-limbed weariness. The strange sensation of calm after being so intense for so long. The day-after crash from being so physically and mentally drained.

And worst of all, the sting of losing a 2-games-in-1 thriller.

This time, though, Turco got to find out how the other half lives. Thanks to captain Brenden Morrow’s power-play goal in the fourth overtime, 129:03 after the first puck was dropped, the Dallas Stars beat the San Jose Sharks 2-1 in the eighth-longest game in NHL history. It ended their second-round series in six games, earning the Stars a spot in the Western Conference finals for the first time in Turco’s career.

“It’s nice to be on this side of it for once,” Turco said. “We’ve had some long ones before, but none of them was more memorable than this one. It was 99 percent fun tonight.”

Pre-dawn finishes are a big part of Stars lore.

Dallas has been involved in five of the 18 longest games in NHL history, more than any other club. All have come since 1999, the year the Stars won their lone Stanley Cup title – in triple overtime, of course.

Turco came away the unquestioned star Sunday. He made a franchise-record 61 saves, one more impressive than the next, especially in the OTs.

“Sick. Just sick,” San Jose veteran Jeremy Roenick said, meaning it as a compliment. “He made huge save after huge save after huge save.”