1. Daniel Cleary, Detroit: Who is this guy? Well, he's the Red Wings' Star-killer right now. Goal and an assist.

2. Dominik Hasek, Detroit: Not a huge day of saves, but he makes the important ones and gets the shutout.

3. Nicklas Lidstrom, Detroit: He is just so quietly good. No turnovers, three blocked shots, plus-2.

First period: The Stars tried to take the early lead and had plenty of attack zone time, but they struggled to get the puck to the net. Detroit took advantage of one slip-up as Stars winger Niklas Hagman fell down and Red Wings defenseman Brian Rafalski slipped in from the point. Daniel Cleary sent a perfect feed from behind the net out into the slot, and Rafalski tallied his seventh goal of the season. Near the end of the period, Dallas Drake pushed goalie Mike Smith to the ground and Smith tried to retaliate with a physical confrontation.

Detroit 1, Stars 0

Second period: The Stars opened on the power play and got no shots on goal. They followed with a second power play two minutes later and got one shot on goal. Mike Modano and Brenden Morrow were able to get in on Dominik Hasek early in the period on a 2-on-1, but Hasek closed the post on a Morrow shot to maintain his shutout. Smith then took a delay of game penalty to give Detroit a 5-on-3, but he made up for it by making a huge save on Henrik Zetterberg to keep the Stars within one goal.

Detroit 1, Stars 0

Third period: Dallas continued to put pressure on Hasek, but the Red Wings put the game away on an innocent-looking play. Cleary ended up with the puck in the left circle, skated a few feet toward the goal line and sent a hard-angle shot that slipped under Smith's pads for a 2-0 Detroit lead with 9:52 remaining. Hasek stood his ground for the remainder of the game, including eating up a Brenden Morrow deflection shot, and Johan Franzen added an empty-netter for the Wings at the 19:40 mark.

Detroit 3, Stars 0