SoCal Stanley Cup Preview

Anaheim at Dallas, 5:00 pm
Western Conference quarterfinals Stars lead, 2-1

DALLAS (Ticker) - The Anaheim Ducks stopped the bleeding, but have a lot of work to do if they plan on defending their Stanley Cup title. The fourth-seeded Ducks on Thursday will try to even their best-of-seven Western Conference quarterfinal series with the fifth-seeded Dallas Stars at two games apiece.

Defenseman Chris Pronger scored a pair of goals and added an assist for Anaheim, which avoided going down three-games-to-none by posting a 4-2 victory in Game Three on Tuesday. "In these situations you want to keep it as simple as possible," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. "There was pressure to play a good hockey game. We had to play our best game of the series and we did. "Are we going to have to play better? For sure. We were fortunate to jump out to an early lead. But we found a way to keep it exciting at the end." Todd Marchant and Ryan Getzlaf also scored for the Ducks, which trailed the Detroit Red Wings two-games-to-one in last season's Western Conference finals before claiming the series in six games. "We've got to have our big guys step up," Pronger said. "You expect your star players to raise their level of play at the top of their game." "Right now, we need to move on and focus on Game Four," said goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who made 31 saves on Tuesday. "We're still down (two-games-to-none) and we need to win some more games."

The Stars had a chance to take a commanding lead in the series, but wasted their first opportunity to capitalize on home ice. Despite the loss, Dallas isn't panicking. "This is a little bump for us," Stars defenseman Stephane Robidas said. "I think we got what we deserved and this is a good wake up call for us. Next game we need to be ready to compete from the beginning." "I'm very disappointed in the outcome but we're in 'fix-it' mode, not 'angry' mode," Dallas coach Dave Tippett said.