STANLEY CUP FINALS
GAME DAY PREVIEWS
GAME 2:
#1 DALLAS STARS vs #7 BUFFALO SABRES
Buffalo leads 1-0
Game time: Thursday June 10th, 1999 8pm at Dallas
While the Buffalo Sabres whooped it up at the opposite end of Reunion Arena, celebrating their overtime victory over the Dallas Stars, goaltender Dominik Hasek plopped onto the ice in front of his net and let out a long sigh of relief.
"I never played before in such a hot building," he said Wednesday. "I don't remember ever being so tired at the end of a game."
The Stars couldn't get to Hasek often enough in the opener Tuesday of the Stanley Cup Finals, but the stifling heat and humidity did.
So after Hasek found the strength to rise to his skates and limp to the locker room after the Sabres' 3-2 triumph, some observers began to speculate that he had aggravated the groin injury that forced him to miss two games in the Eastern Conference finals against Toronto.
Turns out "The Dominator" was suffering from cramps in his right leg, which he had used to make a spectacular save on Stars forward Pat Verbeek moments before Sabres defenseman Jason Woolley scored at 15:30 of the extra period.
"I was very tired," Hasek said. "I tried to drink as much water as I could, but I remember in the overtime right before we scored the goal I made a save on Verbeek and I got a cramp. I was so tired I couldn't get to the other side of the ice and I said, 'Oh, boy,' and I fell on the ice and I just lay on the ice."
Hasek said his groin is fine and he will play tonight in Game 2 of the best-of-seven series.
"My groin didn't bother me the whole game. I feel good," said Hasek, who stopped 35 of 37 shots in the opener.
Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said he is concerned about dehydration, which is why players are drinking as much water as possible during games.
"Obviously, with the goaltender wearing all the equipment he's got on, he's probably in the worst-case scenario," Ruff said. "The building was very hot and in the first two periods we spent a lot of time in our zone. There were lots of situations where Dominik was up and down and making saves. A lot of those flurries are the things that really tire you out."
The Sabres were outshot 24-9 in the first two periods and were shorthanded for 19 minutes, 41 seconds overall. They took 10 penalties and killed off nine of them, and Ruff said his team will have to show a lot more discipline tonight.
"I think you're playing with fire if you're going to give the talent they got 10 power plays," he said. "There was a time in the second period during a TV timeout where we said, `Enough is enough.' "Stars coach Ken Hitchcock wasn't that disappointed in his power play "We had 21 scoring chances," he said but he claimed that Hasek had "an easy night."
Hitchcock said the same thing after Patrick Roy made 30 saves when the Colorado Avalanche defeated Dallas 2-1 in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.
"I think we have to make life a lot more difficult for him and I don't mean to the point where we are running him," Hitchcock said of Hasek. "We had more first-shot opportunities than we've had in probably any game in the playoffs, but it doesn't matter. He is going to make a lot of those saves."
Hasek said he didn't keep track of the Stars' scoring chances. "I don't know how many big chances or how many small chances they had; I never counted," he said. "I just tried to do my job and stop the puck and win the game."