Blues complete Stars' misery

Keith Tkachuk fires a shot at Dallas goalie Ed Belfour

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Western Conference

The St Louis Blues completed a four-game sweep of the Dallas Stars with a 4-1 victory on Thursday, with goaltender Roman Turek once again tormenting his former team-mates.

The Blues' win over the two-time defending conference champions, ensures that for the first time in three years the conference will have a new representative in the Stanley Cup Finals.

St Louis advanced to the conference finals for the first time since 1996 and will face the Colorado Avalanche or the Los Angeles Kings.

Turek was the Blues' star man again in Game Four as he stopped 32 shots - he allowed only six goals in the series.

A former backup to Ed Belfour in Dallas, Turek is now 7-0-2 against his old club.

The fourth-seeded Blues were considered slight underdogs against the third-seeded Stars but outscored them, 13-6.

After a scoreless first period, Alex Khavanov and Keith Tkachuk scored for the Blues before Joe Nieuwendyk struck back to make it 2-1 going into the final period.

But the Blues secured the win and the series through late from Chris Pronger and Scott Young.

Eastern Conference

The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated defending Stanley Cup champions the New Jersey Devils 3-1 in a heated encounter to level their best-of-seven Eastern Conference semi-final at 2-2.

It was a cheap shot - I feel that we have seen the last of Mr Domi in this series and the league will handle this

  Larry Robinson
Devils coach

The game was marred by an ugly incident in the final seconds of the game, when Leafs hardman Tie Domi delivered a blatant elbow to the head of New Jersey defenseman Scott Niedermayer.

Niedermayer was taken off the ice on a stretcher while Domi was assessed a match penalty for a deliberate attempt to injure and faces a possible suspension.

Moments earlier, Devils captain Scott Stevens had been involved in a scrap with Domi.

The Leafs responded to two straight overtime losses with their best game of the series and outplayed the Devils for long stretches.

The Leafs took the lead on Shayne Corson's first play-off goal and Sergei Berezin's strike stretched the lead to 2-0 just 89 seconds into the second period.

After Patrik Elias scored on the power play for New Jersey at 9:21, Mats Sundin provided a huge goal for Toronto just 1:22 later.

Game Five is in New Jersey on Saturday.

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Thursday's results:

Western Conference semi-finals
St Louis 4-1 Los Angeles 0
(St Louis win series 4-0)

Eastern Conference semi-finals
Toronto 3-1 New Jersey
(Best-of-seven series tied 2-2)