Stars advance to Stanley Cup Finals

6/5/99

By Dave Caldwell
The Dallas Morning News

Even Guy Carbonneau said he was a little jittery. When Carbonneau says he is jittery, you are permitted to grit your teeth and sink your fingernails in your armrests and find an oxygen tank to catch your breath during the commercials of a Dallas Stars hockey game.

And this was not just another Stars game. Friday’s game against Colorado was for a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals. It was the end of the season for the loser. It was, well, colossal.

Friday’s game was a huge triumph for the Stars, who whipped Colorado, 4-1, to make the championship round of the NHL playoffs for the first time since they moved to Texas six years ago. The franchise, when it was in Minnesota, lost in the Finals in 1991.

Game 1 of the best-of-seven series against the Eastern Conference champion Buffalo Sabres is to be played at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Reunion Arena.

Carbonneau said later that a victory, even on home ice, was no sure thing Friday night. Not even to a guy who is 39 years old and has played on two Stanley Cup winners.

"If I told you I wasn’t nervous, I’d be lying," the Stars center said, with just a hint of a smile. "The toughest thing about this sport is that you can control what you can do, but you can’t control what the other team can do."

Ah, but maybe you can.

Carbonneau was one of many defensive heroes as the Stars smothered the high-flying Avalanche to win the Western Conference finals, four games to three.

"Carbonneau," Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said, "had a lot of feistiness in him."

He still does. Carbonneau was asked after the game how many Sabres he could name. He crossed his arms. He smiled playfully.

"Probably a lot," he said.

That was not important. The important part is that the Stars won a game they absolutely had to win. Afterward, they were given black baseball caps and white T-shirts with "Western Conference champions" all over them. Those were nice, too, but they said they have a better stash of souvenirs to shoot for.

After three rounds, after 12 victories, they have only one goal left. Dominik Hasek, the Buffalo goaltender who is seemingly made out of elastic, will be standing in front of it. It makes for a great matchup: Hasek against Stars goalie Ed Belfour.

"That’s playoff hockey," Belfour said, laughing.

And it continues. The Stars, Carbonneau said, have a cause.

"Everybody remembers last year, when we went to the playoffs and had two good series, then went on to play Detroit, and everyone was disappointed," Carbonneau said. "So we had a lot of pressure on ourselves to do better than last year.

"I’ve said all year that there is a big difference between this year and last year. This year, we have more poise, and we trust each other, and it seems like when we need it, we always play our best."

Textbook Stars’ hockey

In the judgment of Hitchcock - the only person who really matters - his team played "a textbook Dallas Stars’ hockey game." That meant the Stars smothered Colorado and created scoring chances by battling for them.

After the Avalanche pushed forward early on, Jamie Langenbrunner scored his fifth goal in five games 8:25 into the first period to give the Stars an important 1-0 lead. But a 1-0 lead is nowhere near as good as a 2-0 lead.

"Don’t get me wrong, his goal was nice," Hitchcock said of Langenbrunner. "But the important goal for us was the second goal."

This is where Mike Keane came in. Keane, a member of the Colorado team that won the Cup in 1996 and practically a whippersnapper on this team at 32, scored one goal, then another four minutes later. A three-goal lead for a defensive-oriented team might as well be a 30-goal lead. It held up.

"Our depth has been positive for our team - something that we haven’t had in a long time here," Stars center Mike Modano said.

‘Not cracking’

There was so much noise in the final minutes at Reunion that the place seemed to be reverberating. Afterward, Hitchcock talked about how proud he was of his team. But he also talked about the challenge that still remains unfulfilled.

"This group takes unbelievable pride in not cracking," he said.

Because they had the best record in the NHL in the regular season, the Stars will get to play another Game 7 at Reunion, if they turn out needing one. That, to Carbonneau, would be as crucial as the home ice was Friday. He knows how important every little edge is.

He got a penalty late in the first period for roughing. He and Colorado’s relentless center, Peter Forsberg, tangled near the boards, and Forsberg shoved, and Carbonneau shoved back, and Forsberg went down as if Muhammad Al laid him out with an uppercut.

Carbonneau was so angry with the penalty he slammed his white helmet when he got to the penalty box. But Colorado went without a shot in the two minutes he was there, and for 13 amazing minutes after that.

"I think we wanted to show people something," he said.

They showed the shirtless guy who sat in the upper deck, the top half of his body painted green. They showed the kids who wore their own white helmets to the game and pounded on the glass. They showed the people who made faux Stanley Cups from aluminum foil and paper plates at a table outside Reunion before the game. They showed the Avalanche players, who lined up at center ice and, in a time-honored tradition, congratulated the Stars.

"We knew one of these great teams would go down," Colorado coach Bob Hartley said, "and unfortunately, it was us."

Carbonneau was still standing Friday night, a bag of ice on his sore right knee. He missed two weeks with the injury, and his father died unexpectedly, but he persevered through it all and is still playing, moving
on.

"We’ve just got to regroup and get to the next one," he said. But then he added, "We’re sure going to enjoy this for a day or two."

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