SAD ENDING, LONG NIGHT…LONGER SUMMER

When Taylor Pyatt blocked Phillippe Boucher's shot and then teamed up with Brendan Morrison for an empty net goal to make the score 3-1 Vancouver the wheel was still spinning on the 2007 season, but the hamster was dead.

As the final minute ticked down, and another Canuck empty netter was tacked on, my mind began to go into rewind and replay mode. Eighty-nine games, plus a handful of preseason contests were awaiting another early post-mortem. And the major organs of this now lifeless corpse were a mixture of good, healthy, ruptured, decaying and...well, enough with the metaphors.

Here's what I had on my cold, stainless steel slab: (sorry, last one)

Marty Turco answered an onslaught of pre-series questioning, faced down his playoff demons and dueled the sure to be Hart finalist Roberto Luongo to a draw.

The Stars inability to score undermined Turco, and ultimately was their undoing. They mustered six goals in the final four games of the series, three of those on the powerplay. Even with that deficiency it seemed that they had drawn the only Western Conference team they could outscore, the Canucks. It was squirt gun vs pop gun with water as scarce as whiskey at a mormon cookout.

Sergei Zubov again showed his irreplaceable value, on the ice in games one through six, and in civies in Game 7.

Mike Modano was like a solar flare in Game 6, and his value manifested itself in the regular season when the Stars were a win one -- lose one team with him on IR, and a win three -- lose one club when he was healthy. The game's top American sniper provided goals and highlights during a hum drum regular season but was again muzzled in most of another first round defeat.

Those two aforementioned 36 year olds will be 37 next year. Not exactly ready for a walker but not smack in their prime either.

Brenden Morrow displayed the heart, drive and character that every team desires in a captain. His season was marred by that nasty wrist injury with the pinnacle of the year coming in overtime of Game 5. I just wonder whether the team needs a couple North American contemporaries of his to support his spirit, style and growing authority.

The checking line of Halpern, Barnes and Lundqvist was a revelation in the series.

Battle tested Darryl Sydor teamed with Zubov to herd the Sedin twins throughout the series, and he added much needed character and professionalism throughout the testing regular season.

Jere Lehtinen didn't register a point in the seven game series and that stung. He was the team's leading goal scorer in the regular season. But lets not kid ourselves, he probably prevented a dozen or so goals from being scored against, that's what he does.

Phillipe Boucher, like so many others, went dry in the playoffs and had to eat a sizeable minus rating, but after the year he had to deal with off the ice he gets cut a large chunk of slack.

Mike Ribeiro was a terrific find. He led the offensively challenged bunch in scoring during the regular season and worked to have an impact on games come post season. And he came in exchange for the issue-laden Janne Niinimaa who became a healthy scratch in Montreal.

Most of the others were interchangeable support staff. Robidas the warrior, Daley, Hagman and his work-ethic, Eriksson and his potential, the Finns - Jokinen and Miettinen, Barch, Ott, the injured ones -- Barnaby and Stefan. Big Eric Lindros gets an unsatisfactory and an incomplete. He showed flashes of alpha maleness but was mostly unproductive or on a training table and that hurt the Stars fortunes.

And then there were the additions at the trade deadline. Matty Norstrom played on a slightly wonky knee and had a similar effect to that of Willie Mitchell last year -- good but not great. (He'll be better next year) As for Ladislav Nagy, if I was brutally honest it would probably get censured. "Small", soft and unproductive, with a smattering of whine was surely not what they thought they'd get for the serviceable Mattias Tjarnqvist and first round pick they peddled to Phoenix for him.(He won't be here next year)

One characteristic the team showed that I truly admired was the way they played. They worked, and they worked, and they pushed, and they never said "we quit". And because they did it so often they drew a lot of praise from the opposition. I thought the perfect playoff motto would have been "With your shield or on it" (win or die trying). That was the Spartan mantra.

What seems to be in need of a change is the reactionary nature of the group. Too many times they collectively waited to see what the other team was going to do. They did this early in games. They did it when they got a lead. They did it in the series against Vancouver, both in the early deficit in games and within the games themselves (Game 4 comes to mind), and largely because of it they won't play in the second round. I don't know that they need to adopt Tampa's "Safe is Death" mentality but they could be a lot more consistently pro-active. (The Stars held a first intermission lead greater than 2 goals only once, 3-0 versus the Kings, November 24th. Only eight other times did they hold a 2-goal lead after the first period, and three of those were against that same rebuilding L.A. Kings who the Stars went 8-0 against.)

In the end you admire the survival instincts of the 2006-07 Dallas Stars. They scrapped and clawed all year and they fought their way back to a Game 7. (No Stars team had done that before) But you're also left with the reality that this group has now lost four consecutive playoff series and has just seven post season wins since dispatching the Oilers on April 19th, 2003.

Well, that's it. I'm out of embalming fluid.

Rubber gloves are in the trash.

I'll let you tuck the toe tag and shut the drawer.