STANLEY CUP FINALS
GAME DAY PREVIEWS
GAME 1:
#1 DALLAS STARS vs #7 BUFFALO SABRES
Series Tied 0-0
Game time: Tuesday June 8th, 1999 8pm at Dallas
The final step in the quest for hockey's ultimate prize begins tonight as the Buffalo Sabres face off against the Dallas Stars in Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals.
The Sabres enter the Finals as the underdog, but any team that has Dominik Hasek in net is dangerous. "The Dominator" missed two games in the conference finals against Toronto with a groin injury. Without him, the Sabres looked beatable; with him, they won the last three games of the series to reach the Stanley Cup Finals for the second time in team history and the first since 1975.
At the other end of the rink will be Dallas' Ed Belfour, who was a teammate of Hasek's on the Chicago Blackhawks in the early '90's. In his lone Stanley Cup Finals appearance, Belfour was swept as a member of the Blackhawks in 1992.
Hasek is 11-2 with a .938 save percentage thus far in the postseason, while Belfour is 12-5 with a .927 save percentage.
With Hasek and Belfour between the pipes and two of the league's tightest defenses, there does not figure to be much scoring in this series. The Stars won the Jennings Trophy as the top defensive team during the regular season and rediscovered their suffocating system by holding potent Colorado to two goals in the final two games of the Western Conference finals.
Sabres captain Michael Peca is one of the best two-way players in the game and will have his work cut out for him against the Stars, who have two top centers in Mike Modano and Joe Nieuwendyk.
Peca shut out Ottawa center Alexei Yashin in a first-round sweep, helped neutralize Jason Allison in the second round against Boston and kept Mats Sundin from taking over the conference finals for Toronto.
Defenseman Jason Woolley leads the Sabres with 13 points and Curtis Brown, Alexei Zhitnik and Peca each have 12.
Nieuwendyk leads the Stars with 18 points, Modano is second with 16 and Jamie Langenbrunner is next with 14, including nine goals.
Game Two is Thursday at Dallas.