Dallas Eliminates Blues
Brett Hull, a star for 10 years who scored 527 goals with the St. Louis Blues, helped eliminate his former team from the playoffs as a setup man.
Mike Modano scored on a rebound of Hull's shot at 2:21 of overtime as the Dallas Stars knocked off the Blues in six games with a 2-1 victory Monday night. Hull also assisted on Derek Plante's goal late in the third period.
"Brett was really into the game, playing hard," Modano said. "He was probably hungrier than anybody. He did all the grunt work."
The Blues also were impressed.
"Hull played pretty well," coach Joel Quenneville said. "I think it was his best game of the series."
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Throughout the series, Hull maintained he had no special incentive to beat his former team. He and the Blues parted ways last summer because the team refused to give him a no-trade clause, then they ended up giving one to Al MacInnis.
"It's something that I wanted to do, but I'm not going to say it's more satisfying," Hull said. "But in a situation like this you've got to take those memories and put them in the back of your mind and remember that I play for Dallas."
On the game-winner, Hull skated around the net with the puck and shot a low backhander into Grant Fuhr's skates. Modano was stymied on his first rebound shot, but the second got through for his fourth goal and 11th point of the playoffs.
Four of the last five gaes in the series between the NHL's regular-season champions, who had 114 points, and the Blues, who had 87, went to overtime. Each team won twice.
"We were expecting to win the series," Blues center Craig Conroy said. "It's going to be a long summer thinking about little things here and there. For a while, this one is going to sting."
The Stars now await the winner of the Colorado-Detroit series in the Western Conference finals. Colorado leads 3-2.
"We'd love to have another crack at Detroit," Modano said of the team that beat them in the conference finals last season. "That's what we're hoping for."
Plante tied it with 6:02 to go in the third-period with his first point in six playoff games.
MacInnis scored his first goal of the second round on his 29th shot for the Blues, who went to overtime in seven of their 13 postseason games. St. Louis won four of them, including a double-overtime victory over Phoenix in Game 7 of the first round.
"I don't think anybody can question the character of this team, to come back against Phoenix and to battle the best team in the league," MacInnis said. "I think everybody in this room can certainly keep their head held high."
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| Pavol Demitra tries his best to keep the Stars' Grant Marshall at bay. (AP) |
Plante tied it with a soft sliding shot that went between teammate Mike Keane's legs in front of the net before eluding Fuhr. Fuhr had just righted himself after being accidentally tripped by MacInnis.
Plante, who had six goals and 20 points in the regular season for Buffalo and Dallas, was a healthy scratch in Games 4 and 5.
The Blues scored first for the first time in the series. MacInnis, who ended the postseason with four goals and 12 points, one point behind team leader Pierre Turgeon, beat Ed Belfour at 6:51 of the second period.
With time winding down in a hooking penalty to the Stars' Joe Nieuwendyk, Turgeon won a faceoff and kicked the puck to Jeff Finley, who moved it along to MacInnis at the right point. His rising slap shot soared past Belfour for his 12th point of the playoffs just as Nieuwendyk's penalty expired.
The Blues came out strong in an effort to avoid falling behind early for the sixth straight game. They got two good chances by rookie Jochen Hecht ithe opening minute, with the crowd already chanting BEL-FOUR!, BEL-FOUR! Neither team ended up with the early jump in the first scoreless first period of the series.
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