Pavel Datsyuk recorded his first career playoff hat trick as the Detroit Red Wings romped the Dallas Stars by a 5-2 score Monday night in Dallas. The victory gives the Red Wings a 3-games-to-0 stranglehold lead on the series with the chance to clinch a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals with a victory in Wednesday's Game 4. Henrik Zetterberg and Jiri Hudler also scored for the Red Wings, which have won nine straight games.

Chris Osgood stopped 16 shots for a franchise-record ninth-straight victory.

Detroit opened the scoring midway through the first period when Datsyuk scored his first goal of the game when the Red Wings finished off a 3-on-2 with Zetterberg and Brian Rafalski.

Dallas tied the game just over five minutes later after a long shift by Detroit's fourth line after it failed to clear the defensive zone. Defenseman Nicklas Grossman finished off a nice cross-ice feed from Mike Modano to knot the score at 1-1. The Red Wings wasted little time in answering, however, with Datsyuk scoring his second of the game on a redirection of a Tomas Holmstrom centering pass to give Detroit a 2-1 lead in the first period.

The Stars came out firing in the second period and got a lucky bounce off the stick of Brad Richards to tie the game 2-2. Richard's attempted cross-ice pass deflected off the inside of defenseman Brad Stuart's left knee and found a hole under Osgood.

Detroit regained the lead after a bad line change by the Stars with just over eight minutes remaining in the second period when Niklas Kronwall found Jiri Hudler alone for a breakaway goal on Marty Turco to give the Red Wings a 3-2 lead after two periods.

An early goaltender interference penalty to start the third period gave Dallas an opportunity to tie the game, but that was thwarted by a fantastic play by Zetterberg shorthanded. After intercepting a pass high in the defensive zone, Zetterberg made a move past Richards and waited until Turco committed before snapping a shot into the net for a shorthanded goal and a 4-2 lead just 1:38 into the third period.

Datsyuk completed his hat trick with 2:41 left when he finished off another fine play by Zetterberg, who beat four Dallas defenders to the puck and fed a perfect pass to Datsyuk in the slot for a quick one-timer goal.

The Red Wings held the Stars to 0-for-6 on the power play and 18 shots. Detroit finished 0-for-4 with the extra man and 21 shots on goal.