STANLEY CUP FINALS
GAME SUMMARIES
GAME 5:
#1 DALLAS STARS vs #7 BUFFALO SABRES
Dallas leads 3-2
Next Game: Saturday June 19th, 1999 8pm at Buffalo
With a black-and-blue line and a touch of gray, the Dallas Stars are one victory away from Stanley Cup silver.
Darryl Sydor scored a power-play goal in the second period and the Stars, the oldest team in the playoffs, held off the Buffalo Sabres 2-0 in yet another tightly played game Thursday night for a 3-2 series lead.
"We're one win from the Stanley Cup, and I don't think anybody feels old," the Stars' Mike Keane said.
With the Stars' Ed Belfour matching the better-known Dominik Hasek save for save in the closest Stanley Cup finals in years, the Stars can hoist their first cup by winning Game 6 Saturday in Buffalo.
If they don't, Game 7 will be Tuesday in Reunion Arena.
The Sabres, who lack the big names and big scorers of the Stars, have scored only eight goals in five games and now face big odds, too. No team has rallied from a 3-2 deficit to win the Stanley Cup since Montreal in 1971.
"This is so intense, the only confidence we have is we're up 3-2," Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said. "There's no dominant player, no dominant area, it is absolutely a shift-by-shift battle. There's just no read on the series."
Said Sabres coach Lindy Ruff: "Our players believe they will be back here for Game 7."
The emotionally charged game ended with the coaches screaming at each after the Stars killed off a late Buffalo power play.
"I was yelling at him and he was yelling at me," Ruff said.
Belfour, whose playoff save percentage is better than Hasek's, stopped 23 shots in his best game of the series and third shutout of these playoffs.
"He's played in the shadow of a lot of goaltenders and I think he's taking advantage of this to do something," Sydor said.
Hasek, considered hockey's best goaltender but a backup to Belfour when Pittsburgh swept the Chicago Blackhawks in the 1992 finals, made 19 saves but also gave up a third-period goal to Pat Verbeek.
Mike Modano assisted on both goals and also debuted a black-and-blue line for the black-and-green Stars with Brett Hull and Benoit Hogue. Modano has played with a serious wrist injury since Game 3, while Hogue has two torn knee ligaments and Hull missed Game 4 with a strained groin.
Modano was fitted with a different cast on his left wrist than he wore in the previous two games, and he said it gave him more mobility.
The Stars also constantly won big faceoffs, a key statistic dominated by the Sabres in the previous two games, with 39-year-old Guy Carbonneau winning 16 of 25 draws.
A key call also proved decisive -- not one by the referees, but rather a phone call between Modano and Hitchcock on Thursday night.
"I am able to say some things candidly to him that maybe I can't say to other players," said Hitchcock, who didn't reveal details. "He took it to heart and went about his business today."
Said Modano: "He wanted to talk to me earlier in the day at the rink, but I wasn't in a very approachable mood,"
Modano had warned the Stars earlier in the day, after the teams split 2-1 decisions in Buffalo, that Dallas had to be prepared to win 1-0.
The Stars almost did, taking a 1-0 lead deep into the third before Verbeek scored at 15:21. Modano poked the puck up ice to Richard Matvichuk, who shot it ahead to Verbeek. He skated into the slot and went to his backhand to beat Hasek for his third goal of the playoffs.
Just like the previous four games, Game 5 featured exceptional goaltending, plenty of hitting and a scarcity of open-ice play. It all goes back to the goaltenders. Both Belfour and Hasek brought goals-against averages under 2.00 into Game 5, the first time that's happened in a finals since 1945.
This is the lowest-scoring series since 1947, when Toronto and Montreal also had only 19 goals through five games. Game 5 was only the second in the series decided by two goals; Dallas won Game 2 at home 4-2.
"The games are so tight," Ruff said. "The team that scores first gets the upper hand."
On this night, the stars decided it for the Stars.
After a scoreless first period that had numerous open-ice hits but few good scoring chances, Dallas took advantage of Curtis Brown's interference penalty to score the initial goal for only the second time in the series.
Modano threaded a pass from the right circle across the slot to Sydor in the lower left circle. Hasek chose not to come out of the net and cut off the angle, allowing Sydor to lift the puck over the goaltender's left shoulder and under the crossbar at 2:23 of the second.
Sydor didn't have any power-play goals in the playoffs, but his nine during the regular season were second only to Hull's 15 among the Stars.
Sydor was first spotted as a 13-year-old by Hitchcock, then a junior hockey coach in Kamloops, and debuted for that team at age 16.
"I fell in love with him early," Hitchcock said.
While Dallas finally broke through with a man-advantage, Buffalo's struggles on the power play continued. The Sabres went 0-for-3 in a physical game in which referees Kerry Fraser and Don Koharski overlooked most infractions and are 0-for-17 since scoring twice in Game 2.
The Stars, aware they might be playing their final home game if they didn't win, brought in their lucky star: singer B.J. Thomas. His best-known hit is "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" -- not exactly a good-luck song -- but the Stars are 6-0 when he sings the national anthem.