Time To Put Up

REGULAR SEASON			PLAYOFFS
	GOALS	GP	G/GAME	GOALS	GP	G/GAME	DIFFERENTIAL
MARTIN ST. LOUIS , RW, Lightning	183	523	.350	20	39	.513	+.163
PATRICK MARLEAU , C, Sharks	219	713	.307	28	62	.452	+.145
JAROME IGINLA , RW, Flames	322	775	.415	19	35	.543	+.128
BRAD RICHARDS, C, Lightning	132	487	.271	15	39	.385	+.114
RICHARD ZEDNIK , LW, Islanders	168	621	.270	16	43	.372	+.102

The food was exquisite, the evening historic. On the March night that Mike Modano became the second U.S.-born player to score 500 goals, several Stars congregated for a celebratory supper in a swank Dallas restaurant. While Modano dined with some teammates and friends at a long table in the center of the room, the Stars' No. 1 goalie, Marty Turco , who hadn't played in the game but had thumped the plexiglass behind the bench with gusto after the milestone goal, sat at a satellite table with his wife, his agent, his sister and her husband. "You should send a bottle of wine over to Mike," said Turco 's wife, Kelly. � "[No], we're planning a big party when he [breaks Joe Mullen 's mark of 502]," replied Turco . The jovial mood could not be spoiled even when talk turned to the looming NHL playoffs and someone uttered a word that should never be part of polite dinner conversation--especially at Turco 's table.

Choke.

The Stars' most voluble player was not fazed. "I can say this about choking: A lot of great athletes we put on pedestals have choked, in the common definition of choking," Turco said. "Have I choked? Who knows. By my definition, I don't think I have."

The 31-year-old Turco is a two-time All-Star. In his first season as the Dallas starter, in 2002--03, he set the modern record for goals-against average, 1.72. He was a member of Canada 's Olympic team in Turin . In a perfect world, Turco , as self-aware as he is gifted, would be a playoff god; in fact, the goalie with an unimpeachable regular-season record--"Regular season, he's a machine," Modano says--has been irredeemable in the playoffs. After falling in the second round in '03, he has been outplayed by the hardly distinguished David Aebischer and off-the-radar Jos� Th�odore while losing to Colorado in the first round of two straight postseasons.

When goals are at a premium and save percentages trend upward--in 2005--06, the playoff average was half a goal lower than in the regular season-- Turco 's have tended to dip: from .913 to a woeful .849 in 2003--04 and from .898 to .868 last year. Turco 's misadventures, of course, don't exist in a vacuum. The Stars' inability to net timely goals has shortened their springs. "If Marty didn't have to play until four o'clock every morning," says Dallas G.M. Doug Armstrong , whose team lost three overtime playoff games in 2006, "maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation." Says forward Brenden Morrow , "Marty's taken the brunt, but I was plus-30 in the regular season and [minus-1 last spring]. I took a dumb penalty in Game 3 at the end. Lots of mistakes out there. Marty makes them. I make them." Excuses are readily available--life, after all, is context--but Turco rejects them, saying simply he is "almost 100 percent sure it won't happen again." He might not be a clutch player, but he isn't a crutch player, either.

If misery loves company, Turco runs with a fast crowd. With the playoffs starting next week, several elite players are at a juncture at which another inconsequential postseason might define their careers. Those on the hot seat are hardly ingenues. They are old enough (in their late 20s or 30s), playoff-tested enough and significant enough that they should be able to carry a team for a week, a series, maybe even two months. "Expectations are so high," Turco says, referring to himself and the other top players under scrutiny, "but obviously there's a reason people expect a lot."

Along with Turco, here are the other NHL stars with their reputations at stake this postseason.

Daniel Alfredsson

The right wing's 79 playoff games constitute every one in Ottawa 's ill-fated postseason history. If the Senators had had competent goaltending, they might have won multiple Cups, but the 34-year-old Alfredsson , the captain and longest-serving Senator, has been the scapegoat. Since Ottawa lost Game 7 at home to the New Jersey Devils in the 2003 Eastern Conference finals, Alfredsson has scored three times in 17 postseason games, despite averaging 34 goals over the last three seasons. Last year Alfredsson was playing the point on the power play when the Buffalo Sabres' Jason Pominville waltzed around him in Game 5 to score the short-handed goal that ended the second-round series. He didn't try to impede Pominville because he didn't want to take a penalty, a laissez-faire play that belies Alfredsson 's typical playoff attitude. "I remember watching him before I took the job here, and my observation to Daniel was, 'You internalize everything,'" says Bryan Murray , in his second season behind the Senators ' bench. "'You do everything for everybody instead of just playing the way you play. You overhandle the puck. You over-backcheck.' Last year against Buffalo he tried to do everything for the team and be the perfect captain, and he let it affect his overall game. He tries so damn hard that it exhausts him by the end of a series."

Pavel Datsyuk