The Hull Story Is Sabres Are Left Stanley-Steamed

As the first overtime overflowed into the second, the second became the third and Saturday night became Sunday morning, Brett Hull began to wonder how much more pain he could take. But with the Stanley Cup one goal away for the Dallas Stars, Hull refused to give in to the injuries that turned Game 6 of the finals into his own personal hell.

“I blew out my knee in Game 3 and missed Game 4, and my groin has been screwed up for a while. I could barely lift my leg over the boards,” he said. “I was getting my knee checked and I pulled off my skate and pulled my left hamstring. I felt like [former Dodger] Kirk Gibson.”

To keep going, he was treated with heat or ice during each intermission and was taped tighter than a mummy. “I don’t know how much longer I could have gone on,” he said.

He ended his ordeal--and the Stars’ rugged six-game series with the Buffalo Sabres--by scoring on a rebound at 14:51 of the third overtime to give the Stars a 2-1 victory. The Sabres protested the goal because Hull’s left foot was clearly in the crease, but it stood because NHL officials invoked a little-known rule and decreed Hull maintained possession of the puck after it deflected off the glove of Sabre goalie Dominik Hasek and out of the crease. Hull kicked the puck onto his stick and shot it past Hasek.

“Hull had possession and control of the puck. The rebound off the goalie doesn’t change anything,” said Bryan Lewis, the NHL’s director of officiating. “It is his puck to shoot and score, albeit a foot may or may not be in the crease prior to [the puck].”

Lewis also said if he and supervisor Charlie Banfield determined the goal was illegal, they would have halted Dallas’ revelry and continued play. The Sabres, however, doubted that. “I think it’s a case where they don’t have the nerve after all the celebration to call the goal back,” team captain Michael Peca said. “What can you do? It’s over, and it will be a story for a long time.”

Hasek said he was prepared to go back to his net, anticipating the goal would be waved off. “I only know that we’ve been playing for two months and somebody’s probably sleeping. The goal judge, I don’t know what he was doing,” Hasek said. “I’m bitter but I can just congratulate the Stars. They’ve done well and they’ve never won the Stanley Cup before. I’m very bitter because of what happened. It’s a shame.”

Hull, watching the champagne-spraying antics in Dallas’ locker room from atop a locker, sympathized with the Sabres’ frustration over the crease rule.

“It’s a stupid rule,” Hull said. “I wasn’t interfering with Hasek or anything. If I take his foot out from under him when I score, sure, that should be no goal. But if I score from the blue line and someone has a foot in the crease and it’s disallowed, that’s ridiculous.”

The controversy overshadowed not only Hull’s heroics but also some exceptional individual efforts by the Stars and Sabres in making this one of the closest finals in Cup history and the most competitive since the New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks went to seven games in 1994.

Dallas goalie Ed Belfour, branded with the reputation of losing big games, stopped 53 shots Saturday and 142 of 151 in the series, a .940 save percentage. Hasek, the NHL’s two-time most valuable player, stopped 186 of 198 shots, a .939 save percentage.

“When I was 5 years old, I had dreams of this day,” said Belfour, who was serenaded with chants of “Ed-die!” from his teammates as he lifted the Cup. “I played for the Stanley Cup so many times in my backyard.”

The Stars’ Darryl Sydor, who played for the Kings in 1993 when they lost a five-game final to Montreal, said, “I’ve been on the other side and this is a lot more fun. It’s been an outstanding season. We have an outstanding team that plays with a lot of heart.”

The Sabres, although held to nine goals--a record-low in a six-game final series--were admirably gritty. “There is no shame and there is no blame,” Coach Lindy Ruff said. “We got this far together and we lost together.”

Said forward Joe Juneau: “I believe we gave everything we had. They played hard and you don’t want to take anything away from their team, but I believe everybody will remember this as the Stanley Cup that was never won in ’99.”