Hull Gets Late Goal as Stars Get Even

When the Dallas Stars signed Brett Hull as a free agent last summer, Coach Ken Hitchcock immediately told him he would have a new role. Hull, one of the most dynamic and prolific goal scorers in the NHL, would be a checker who can score, not a scorer whose only contact with checks was to cash them.

To Hull’s credit, he was a model prisoner, submerging his individual whims for the collective good. “I used to be a scorer,” he said with a smile.

The 30-foot shot he ripped past a screened Dominik Hasek for the decisive goal in Dallas’ 4-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres strongly suggested he still is a scorer. And even Hull, who is rarely sentimental about anything he does on the ice, acknowledged he was moved after he helped the Stars tie the Stanley Cup finals at one game each before the series shifts to Buffalo for Games 3 and 4, Saturday and Tuesday.

“I’m not one of those guys who lives and breathes and dies hockey, so it’s not like I dreamed of this,” said Hull, whose game-winner at 17:10 of the third period continued a family tradition begun by his father, Bobby, and uncle Dennis. “But to get here and feel the emotion, it’s just unbelievable.”

It was easier to believe Hull turned sentimental than to believe defenseman Craig Ludwig scored a goal, but that happened too. Ludwig’s shot from the left-wing boards, made possible after Brian Skrudland beat Wayne Primeau on a faceoff, went between Hasek’s legs at 4:25 of the third period for a 2-1 Dallas lead and his first playoff goal in 11 years, a record for the most years between playoff goals.

And it was difficult but not impossible to believe the Stars won despite losing center Mike Modano to a wrist injury after he was thumped into the boards by Buffalo’s Jay McKee midway through the third period. Their depth has buoyed them all season, so that was no shock.

But it certainly wasn’t hard to believe the Stars and Sabres have learned to hate each other and put an extra zing into each hit. Air-conditioning units kept the temperature inside Reunion Arena markedly cooler than it had been in the series opener, but the teams’ anger ran hotter. “I think we learned to hate Buffalo in Game 1, because we obviously didn’t take them as seriously as we should have,” Ludwig said.

The Sabres accused the Stars of running Hasek, but Hitchcock said if Hasek is going to roam far out of his net and control the puck like a defenseman, he must expect to be treated like a defenseman and expect to be hit. “It’s the pressure that you want to put on him, and hopefully he bobbles it,” Hitchcock said.

The acrimony drove Sabre Coach Lindy Ruff to take a verbal jab at Skrudland, who played for the Florida Panthers when Ruff was the team’s assistant coach but earned Ruff’s enmity by climbing atop Hasek’s back as the goaltender came out to play the puck in the corner in the first period.

“It’s obvious intent. It was Skrudland’s only hit of the game and it happened to be our goaltender,” Ruff said. “It’s the only guy he can track down. . . . If you’re going to treat the goaltender like a defenseman, that means when [Ed] Belfour is behind the net, you just run him over. You can’t treat him like a defenseman. He’s not a defenseman.”

Skrudland shrugged off Ruff’s claims. “Goaltenders today are like a seventh defenseman,” he said. “The bottom line is we’ve got to go after the puck and whether Dominik Hasek has it in the corner or someone else has it, we’ve got to go after it.”

The verbal battles weren’t nearly as good as the battles on the ice.

Buffalo’s power play, a formidable weapon throughout the playoffs, clicked again at 7:27 of the second period when Jason Woolley saw Michael Peca’s upraised stick and found Peca for a sharp-angle shot from the left side. The Stars pulled even when Jamie Langenbrunner redirected a shot by Richard Matvichuk over Hasek’s right arm at 18:26 for his playoff-leading 10th goal.

The Sabres started the third period slowly, and the Stars capitalized on that with Ludwig’s goal. But Alex Zhitnik, with a nifty spinning move, brought the Sabres even again at 5:36, during another Buffalo power play.

The Sabres killed a 43-second three-on-five disadvantage, thanks to a series of brilliant saves by Hasek. But Hull’s goal proved too much, and Derian Hatcher sent the joyful sellout crowd of 17,001 home happy with an empty-net goal with 26 seconds left.

“Our team battled hard. We battled to the bitter end,” Ruff said. “We’ve got to do more of the same when we get back home.”

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