Mighty Doves Blank Stars

They actually played hockey Friday night at the Arrowhead Pond.

It wasn’t great hockey, but the Mighty Ducks and Dallas Stars did nothing to embarrass themselves or their sport in front of a sellout crowd of 17,174.

No nail ‘em, no revenge, no bloodshed. In the end, the Ducks and Stars played nice. The Ducks did leave the Stars with a case of whiplash en route to a 3-0 victory, however.

But that had everything to do with the blazing speed of Duck wingers Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne, who played their best games of the new season.

Duck goaltender Guy Hebert outdueled Dallas’ Ed Belfour, stopping 37 shots for his 23rd career shutout.

Kevin Haller scored the only goal the Ducks would need, his first since Feb. 27 and the team’s first since last season.

The Ducks had been blanked, 2-0, by the Stars last Saturday and by 4-0 Tuesday against the Phoenix Coyotes in their first two games.

At game’s end, the crowd gave the Ducks a standing ovation. But they might also have been cheering for the Stars, who played with a sense of restraint after a week of tough talk.

“We’ve gone through a lot this week--not only because of the way we were playing, but because of all the criticism we took as a group,” Duck Coach Craig Hartsburg said. “The league should be proud of the two teams. I’m relieved it’s over. Our games against Dallas the rest of the year should be very intense. I don’t expect anything else when we do play Dallas.”

Dallas Coach Ken Hitchcock threatened to turn Friday’s game into a war in the wake of Duck defenseman Ruslan Salei’s shove that sent Star center Mike Modano crashing headfirst into the boards last Saturday.

Salei was suspended for 10 games for the hit. Modano was hospitalized with a concussion, a broken nose and a strained neck. Defenseman Pascal Trepanier and left wing Jim McKenzie also were suspended, for five and four games, respectively, for their rough play.

There were no fights Friday. No hits that might have left either team screaming for revenge, either.

“The hype was probably bigger than the game,” Dallas winger Mike Keane said after the Stars’ first loss in four games. “The press built it up. It was a hard, physical game. We came up on the short end and we’re not too happy about that.

“If we go out and hit Paul Kariya or Teemu Selanne, that’s not what we are all about. That’s not what the NHL is all about. That’s not making the game better. We want to make the game better.”

Someone asked Hitchcock if Modano’s request Thursday to stop the blood feud with the Ducks had any impact on the Stars’ play Friday against the Ducks.

“None,” Hitchcock said. “We had already made up our minds [not to retaliate]. The impact he made was when he came to the rink with a smile on his face.”

Modano is out indefinitely because of his injuries, and the Stars certainly missed his leadership and skills Friday. They seemed tentative at times.

Dallas also was caught in a rare odd-man rush by the Ducks late in the first period. Center Ted Drury picked up a long rebound off the pads of Hebert and started a three-on-two break. Drury dropped a pass to a trailing Haller, who whistled a shot past Belfour at the 13:18 mark. A hard-charging Ladislav Kohn screened Belfour.

The Stars then lost a bit of their composure midway through the second period when Brian Skrudland and Richard Matvichuk picked up interference and high-sticking penalties at 9:43.

The Ducks, who had the NHL’s best power play with a 22% success rate last season, converted on the two-man advantage when Selanne redirected home defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky’s slap shot from the right circle.

It was a bunt that would have made any New York Yankee proud.

“That really got us going,” Hartsburg said. “We had a lot of energy and we dominated the rest of the period. Then we hung on in the third period.”

Dallas buzzed Hebert’s net, but he frustrated the Stars at every turn. Tverdovsky sealed the victory with an empty-net goal with 24 seconds left.