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head coach: Ken Hitchcock

roster: C-Mike Modano, Guy Carbonneau, Joe Nieuwendyk, Bob Bassen, C-Mike Modano, Guy Carbonneau, Joe Nieuwendyk, Bob Bassen, Brian Skrudland. LW- Dave Reid, Greg Adams, Benoit Hogue, Juha Lind, Patrick Cote. RW- Mike Keane, Mike Kennedy, Pat Verbeek, Jamie Langenbrunner, Jere Lehtinen, Grant Marshall. D-Derian Hatcher, Craig Ludwig, Darryl Sydor, Shawn Chambers, Richard Matvichuk, Sergei Zubov, Craig Muni. G-Ed Belfour, Roman Turek.

standings:

Western Conference - Central Division
Team         GP   W   L   T   PTS   GF   GA   
p-Dallas     82  49  22  11   109  242  167  
x-Detroit    82  44  23  15   103  250  196  
x-St Louis   82  45  29   8    98  256  204  
x-Phoenix    82  35  35  12    82  224  227  
Chicago      82  30  39  13    73  192  199  
Toronto      82  30  43   9    69  194  237  

x - Clinched playoff spot
p - Clinched President's Trophy

team news:

by Jim Panenka, Dallas Correspondent

The Season that Almost Was

Here's the tale of the tape for Dallas' 1997-98 season:

The team's first-ever President's Trophy. 109 points. 49 victories. A .665 winning percentage. 27 games over .500. One goal shy (167) of the Jennings Trophy (166 goals allowed against won the trophy for the New Jersey Devils). A team record goals-against average of 2.01. A team record low of 22.8 shots average allowed per game. A 23-14-4 road record and 50 points earned away from Reunion Arena. A 20 percent conversion rate on the power play (best in league). An 88 percent penalty-kill percentage (second-best in league). A league-leading 54.9 percent face-off win percentage. A regular-season Western Conference championship (best regular record in the West).

Pretty damn impressive - that's all you can call that list of regular-season accomplishments. But, there were only two things missing from the list, and both (should or would - take your pick) have happened in the playoffs:

1) Western Conference playoff championship.
2) Stanley Cup championship.

But, thanks to a steady stream of injured players and a no-talent puke named Bryan Marchment, Dallas never had a chance to fulfill its playoff destiny. More on that later.

Season Recap

The Stars had an incredible regular season. Dallas followed up their worst-to-first 48-win, 104-point season in 1996-97 with another impressive regular-season record of 109 points and 49 wins. That was good enough to win Dallas its first- ever President's Trophy for the best regular-season record. How did it all start?

During the preseason, Mike Modano was holding out for a contract and Joe Nieuwendyk quietly geared up for a superb season. The big distraction was Modano - would he sign, or would he hold out during the season?

While that question was being answered, Joey Nieuwendyk put together a great string of exhibition games and quickly showed everyone that cared to witness it that he was in great shape, and was ready to steal away some of Modano's thunder if he got a chance.

As it turned out, Modano signed in time to play the last exhibition game prior to the season's opening game against Colorado on Oct. 1. This early return insured he would get enough playing time to work out the rust and begin contributing early.

The Stars started out slowly, failing to get a win in their first two games. But after the two early stumbles the team charged fully out of the gate, winning the next four straight games (including a 7-0 thumping of Chicago), and racking up a pretty good record of 9-4-1 for the month of October.

During October and November, both Modano and Nieuwendyk were slugging it out for the bragging rights of most productive line for the team. Both racked up about 10 points apiece in October. They even traded early hat tricks. Modano scored his in October, Nieuwendyk scored one in November. However, the edge belonged to the tandem of Modano and Lehtinen.

Generally, Ken Hithchcock likes to describe his lines in tandems of two players rather than a three-man unit. For Dallas, the two main pairings are Modano-Lehtinen and Nieuwendyk-Verbeek. Alone, each of these four players constituted a threat. But when paired with their respective partners, these tandems were potent forces in the league.

Modano and Lehtinen were consistently tearing up opponents whenever the opponent made the slightest of mistakes. Modano had an impressive three-plus games of at least three or more points per game. Lehtinen had at least two games with two or more goals.

The Modano-Nieuwendyk lines were quickly being recognized as one of the most potent one-two punches in the entire league. Between the two of them, Modano and Nieuwendyk were collectively averaging around three points per game! Some nights they would tally five to six points between them.

This statistic, coupled with the fact that Dallas' power play was rapidly gaining ground as one of the best units around, spelled doom for the Stars' opposition.

Modano's Swan Season Ended

That was, of course, until fate dealt the Stars a cruel blow - one that came at the hands of an old nemesis. The date was December 3, 1997. The opponent was: who else? The Edmonton Oilers.

December 3 was the night that Bryan Marchment flipped his wig and decided to turn into the anti-superhero. That was the night that Bryan the Knee-Wrecker officially saw the light of day. That was the night that Marchment "innocently" allowed a knee-on-knee collision between himself and Modano at center ice.

Marchment skated away no worse for the wear, save a major penalty and a game-ejection. Modano suffered a torn right medial collateral ligament and would be out the next four to six weeks.

The good news was, Dallas capitalized on the ensuing power play. In fact, the Stars scored on two of the eight chances they received that night. This demonstrated to the league that the Stars would make any opponent pay for penalties taken. It also helped bolster the opinion of Ken Hitchcock that his team didn't need an enforcer.

The bad news was Modano, who was the league's leading scorer at the time, had been summarily taken out of the league's point-scoring race. This ruined Mo's chance to have what potentially could have been the best season of his entire career. Early projections predicted Modano could have possibly had a 50-goal, 100-point season. Thanks to Marchment, he never had the chance to find out.

Modano ended up with a measly 21-goal, 38-assist season for 59 total points. The bonus was he finished with a +/- rating of +24, positioning himself as not only one of the league's best scorers, but one of the most defensively sound players as well.

Picking up the Pieces

The team recovered the best it could. It took two to three games before Nieuwendyk was able to get back into the saddle and figure out a way to begin scoring again, now that he lost his relative anonymity on the ice because of Modano's absence.

The truth of the matter was that Nieuwendyk and Verbeek were both doing a pretty good job of keeping things going through December-January, but the team would need to get its scoring from other places.

Luckily for Dallas, the scoring did come from throughout the roster. The d-men contributed quite heavily during this period.

The Stars continued steaming along splendidly. Hitchcock kept rolling out four lines and six d-men at the opposition. Nieuwendyk and Carbonneau were winning nearly every faceoff they took. Hatcher and Matvichuk were either punishing or negating (or both) every top line they faced from the opposition. Zubov and Sydor were keeping the pressure on from the point during the power play, and were causing or scoring a lot of goals because of it.

Dallas had one of the league's top offensive blueliners in Sergei Zubov this past season, who tied for second in the NHL with 57 points by a defenseman. Zubie had the highest points-per-game average among NHL defensemen (.78 pts. per game).

Zubov was considered the best power-play quarterback in the league. He placed third in the league in power-play assists (29), tied for sixth in power-play points (34) and ranked ninth in the league in assists overall.

Despite missing nine games due to injury, Zubov was on the ice for 122 of Dallas' 242 goals and 61 of the team's 77 power-play goals, and racked up a serious amount of ice time, routinely breaking 20 minutes a night.

Zubov's partner on the left point during the power play, Darryl Sydor, chipped in a few points of his own. Sydor finished with 11 goals and 35 assists for 46 points, was second on the team with 28 power-play points, third with 35 assists, and fourth in +/- at +17.

Defensive defenseman Richard Matvichuk was first in the league with 142 blocked shots and fourth with 222 hits. Veteran Craig Ludwig placed 10th in the league in blocks (113) and moved into 39th place on the NHL's list of all-time games played (1,176).

And, all the Stars players quickly became experts at shot-blocking.

Back between the pipes, Eddie "the Eagle" Belfour quickly gained superstar status in Dallas because of his heroic backstopping. If the d-men ever did let anything get through to Eddie, more often than not he would quickly squelch the opportunity as if it had never existed to begin with.

Most times, the opportunities never even materialized for the opposition. If Dallas wasn't stealing the puck away during the faceoff, their defensive specialists (Modano, Carbonneau, Lehtinen, et al) were stealing it away when the opposition turned their heads for a second.

Even when the opposition had the power play, the Stars were getting just plain deadly at forcing a turnover and carrying it on to score at the other end short-handed.

Modano tied for third in the league with five shorthanded goals and seven shorthanded points while Jere Lehtinen tied for 12th in the NHL with five shorthanded points. Not only was the Modano-Lehtinen tandem deadly together in the offensive zone, individually they were just as good at stealing it away and ramming the puck down the opposition's throat (or goal, take your pick).

Once they got the puck, the Stars were getting better at transitioning to the offensive zone and keeping it alive thanks to the heroics of Zubov and/or Sydor at the points.

Once they had the puck set up, Dallas would just rotate players in the zone until a scoring chance presented itself. Many times, they would convert on that chance.

However, as the season wore on, Dallas' power-play unit quickly became the team's only source of goals. Hitchcock could be heard chanting his "we need to get better at our five-on-five play" mantra.

Individually, certain players would have hot streaks. Throughout the year, Nieuwendyk, Verbeek, Lehtinen, Modano, Adams, Verbeek and the like would run hot and cold. But overall, most of the scoring came on the man-advantage. If Dallas did score 5-on-5, it was usually never by the same player twice. Reid, Marshall, Hogue and the like were kicking in (in some cases quite literally kicking in) a few ugly, garbage goals here and there.

Putting Ghosts Into the Machine

It was too easy to counteract Dallas' strengths. Especially since Modano's health would be a question mark the remainder of the season. With only one top-gun left for Dallas (Nieuwendyk), the opposing team need only shut him down to shut down the Stars. As long as the opposition scored, played patient and defensive, not allowing any mistakes, they had a decent chance of beating Dallas on any given night.

If that weren't enough, the opposing teams quickly figured out that the Stars' production on the power play came mostly at the hands of two players - Zubov and Sydor. Shut these two down at the point by coming after them physically, and you have effectively rendered the Stars impotent.

So, for the remainder of the season, Dallas had to survive by relying on their superb shot-blocking defense, keeping the puck after winning the faceoff, as well as trusting their EXTREMELY stingy netminder. And, by the graces of the hockey gods, that turned out to be enough - along with the helpful chipped-in goal by the odd forward - to carry the Stars into the playoff hunt in good shape.

Dallas was a club recognized and feared as one of the hardest-working teams around. All the players bought wholesale into the team system, and worked it together to win, night after night.

"Our system is built around the team rather than one or two players," said left wing Dave Reid. "A lot of teams will gear things for certain guys whereas our team isn't geared for anybody in particular. Our system is built around third line type of play. Our system is a grinding, checking game."

The Stars' main weakness was a lack of tough guys. Without a goon in the lineup, Dallas was seen as a team that could be roughed up and taken off their game. If the opposition never allowed Dallas to put "their game" on the ice, that assumption was true.

Although the Stars liked their team chemistry, when general manager Bob Gainey had a chance to pull the trigger on a key trade, he didn't hesitate. On March 24, Gainey traded for Stanley Cup veterans Mike Keane and Brian Skrudland from the New York Rangers by dealing Todd Harvey and Bob Errey.

This one move further insured that the Stars would be making some serious noise in the playoffs. Both veterans were recognized as winners that knew what it takes to win, and both had been on the hot seat before. And as a continuation of the Stars-Montreal Canadiens ties, both had played for Les Habitantes before. (Carbonneau, Ludwig, and Gainey were once members of the Canadiens).

Keane proved his worth during the first few playoff series. Skrudland disappeared somewhat, but both definitely made very important, valuable contributions to the club.

Marchment Sucks (over and over again)

Quickly, other teams in the league, for whatever reason, put a price on the Stars' heads. Player after player would rotate out of the lineup and onto the injured-reserve list. Modano, Hatcher, Matvichuk, Adams, Cote, Lehtinen, and Nieuwendyk were just some of the names that appeared on the IR list for Dallas. The trend continued off and on for the entire season and even continued into the playoffs.

Strangely enough, Bryan Marchment could not be blamed for every single injury, despite his twisted, sicko, no-talent aspirations. RETIRE WHILE YOUR BEHIND, YA PUKE!!

If you can't beat 'em, might as well kill 'em. That seemed to be the strategy.

Steaming Full-Speed into Splitsville

It worked. Dallas held the ship together long enough to enter into the playoffs in great shape, despite dropping players every step along the way.

And the Stars defiantly dropped two other opponents on their way to eventually meeting their match in Detroit.

Dallas' first-round opponent, San Jose, was simply outclassed. The Sharks recognized this and turned to goonery in a last-ditch effort to remain competitive. And the Stars could have easily made it a 4-0 rout, if it wasn't for more of Bryan Marchment's goonery.

Unfortunately, the old Knee Wrecker was still in the league, ending up in San Jose after being traded by Edmonton (good move, Glen Sather!). Marchment took Nieuwendyk out with a dirty run into the boards from behind during the first game of this series.

It was a needless retaliation by an inferior opponent in response to the Stars' complete domination. A brutal act by Marchment, a humiliated girly-man who noticed his team was being handed their asses. Dallas had scored twice on their first three shots in that game. It would have quickly turned R E A L L Y ugly for San Jose. Instead, the ugly just turned on the Stars.

This one point is where the Stars' hopes for Lord Stanley evaporated.

However, as they had done all year previously, Dallas refused to slow down, and refused to let these injuries become an excuse for folding in the tent and tanking the rest of the playoff run.

Round Two

The next round saw the Cardiac Kids of Edmonton trade punches back-and-forth with Dallas in what turned out to be a very entertaining series. Once the Oilers got rid of that loser Marchment by trading him away, they turned into a much- better club.

And, Edmonton coach Ron Low amazingly kept his mouth shut long enough to let the players do the talking out on the ice. This series was one of the most honest, true playoff series that were held throughout the entire playoffs. Both teams played very well, and both teams were concentrating on nothing but playing good hockey. All the other BS and hyperbole were ignored.

Edmonton had the hot young guns, but Dallas had the more experienced, patient, defensive veterans.

Dallas survived this series by besting Curtis Joseph. Plain and simple. Almost all other factors were equal.

The End is Nigh

The 1997-98 Dallas Stars survived right up to the conference finals, and were four wins away from a chance at a Stanley Cup championship. Too bad they only managed one of those necessary four wins.

In the end, Detroit's defense was too much for Dallas' battered offense to overcome. As the converse to the Edmonton series, the Stars played a great series against Detroit, but they simply could not score on Chris Osgood consistently.

Ozzy was much-maligned for letting in his occasional softy from center ice, but when it came right down to it, Osgood out-duelled Belfour when it counted.

Dallas pushed the Red Wings to the brink of a momentum change. The Stars were briefly positioned to firmly challenge Detroit for control of the series. Had they won the first or third game along with the second, Dallas could have been knocking on the Red Wings' door to repossess Lord Stanley's Cup.

Instead, Beflour blew a gasket and attempted to render Martin Lapointe impotent with a nasty slash to the groin. Belfour also happened to dive looking for a penalty that never came, and subsequently allowed Lapointe to have the last laugh by scoring the goal that sealed the coffin lid for the Stars.

Bringing it on Home (so to speak)

Dallas never recovered from this mental lapse by Belfour. Even though the team was still playing the best they could up until the very bitter end, Belfour kept giving up the untimely goals just as it seemed the Stars were clawing within a few minutes of scoring themselves.

In the end, Detroit prevailed and went on to claim its second consecutive championship.

The entire event can't be blamed on Belfour, but it was his weakness at the WORST possible moments that helped finish off his team, despite a uniquely valiant effort by Dallas.

The Stars can only be held up on a pedestal and admired for the amazing feats they were able to accomplish. Despite being bruised, battered, hacked, whacked, and keyed on during every single shift of every single game, each individual Dallas Stars player sucked it up, and battled through true adversity to find a way, some stinkin' way, to win night after night after night.

One can only ponder over what might have been... IF...

TEAM MVP: Well, despite giving it all away at the very end, there is no question that with the injury to Joe Nieuwendyk, Ed Belfour was the most valuable player to Dallas this last season.

Belfour overcame a pretty good amount of adversity himself by quickly adapting to the Stars' unusual shot-blocking defense. It certainly could not have been easy for Belfour; having to decide whether or not to cover a shot down low whenever Ludwig or Matvichuk were diving in front of him. Eddie was more used to defenders staying on their feet around him, as they had done in Chicago.

As it turned out, this learning period could be directly blamed for many of Dallas early losses. The players needed to learn what Eddie expected of them, and vice versa.

In the end, the team worked it out. Eddie would cover any high shots, and the d-men would attempt to block or stop anything coming in down low.

This was a dangerous situation, because having large, hulking defenders in front of the net during fast, high-intensity rushes could lead to pucks bouncing in off the Stars' defenders into their own net.

This happened way too many times. An unofficial count has at least five to eight of the goals being scored against Dallas going into the net either directly off the defenders skates, or other body parts.

One particularly memorable goal somehow went in after bouncing off a defender's rear end. I guess an ass CAN score goals in this league!?!

But with these weirdities aside, Belfour went on to dominate in net for the Stars, and turned into one of the stingiest netminders in the league.

Belfour finished first in the league in goals-against average (1.88), the second time he's led the league in that category. He also ranked second in the league in wins with 37, third in shutouts with nine and tied for seventh in save percentage at .916.

Belfour effectively re-wrote the franchise record book for goaltending, setting new team watermarks for most wins in a season and lowest goals-against average. Eddie also opened the season with three shutouts in October, a new career high and team record for most shutouts during the first month of the season.

Belfour continued his great early play, going unbeaten in his first nine road games of the season (7-0-2, Oct. 1 - Nov. 16), the longest road unbeaten string ever by a Stars goaltender. He also posted a career-best shutout sequence of 183 minutes, 14 seconds from Nov. 21-26, second longest in franchise history.

Eddie had a second nine-game unbeaten streak (5-0-4) from Dec. 15 - Jan. 9. Belfour also established the current franchise record with nine shutouts in one season and moved into 21st place on the NHL's all-time shutout list with 40. Despite playing for Dallas for only one season, Belfour is tied for third on the Stars all-time career shutout list with nine, is ninth with 37 wins and 10th on the all-time list for goaltender minutes played with 3,581.

His netminding heroics routinely caused the Dallas crowd to go all loopy with thunderous chants of EDDIE! EDDIE! On the average, it seemed as if Belfour was so solid and steady in the nets, the team could quite nearly forget about their defensive duties.

Obviously, they did not. Belfour routinely turned away the league's best players after they all but moved mountains to have gotten in front of him for a scoring chance to begin with.

Some say because of his lack of work during a game (Belfour would routinely post wins after having to make a measly 15-25 saves- not exactly a heavy night of work) any goaltender could have posted good numbers with Dallas.

But, it was Eddie's uncanny ability to make the big save at the big time against the big player that earned him the recognition as the Stars' MVP for the 1997-1998 season.

SURPRISES: Guy Carbonneau, hands-down. Carbo is definitely nearing the end of his stellar career, so nobody expected him to be much more than a defensive-specialist for the Stars. As it turned out, Carbo proved he is nowhere near finished, as far as he is concerned, thank you very much.

Guy shared the Stars' faceoff specialist award with Joe Nieuwendyk (59.5%), managing also to place third in the league at 59.4 percent faceoffs-won. It was this specialty that marked his most important, productive season since joining the Stars.

Not only did Carbo specialize in faceoffs, he also transformed into one of the Stars' most tenacious forecheckers, as well as being one of the most solid penalty-killers on the team.

Guy contributed a modest seven goals, 17 assists for 24 points during the regular season.

However, it was his heroics in the overtime of Game 5 vs. Detroit that will forever cement Carbo into the minds and hearts of Stars fans everywhere.

The Wings had a 3-1 series lead over Dallas going into Game 5, and the Stars had to go against traditional wisdom and history and win three straight games to advance. Not many teams had been able to do it.

"They can talk about the history, but no one in this dressing room thinks it's over," said Guy Carbonneau. "We still want to go to the end. To do that, we've got to get back to Dallas and win the next one."

They did win the next one, thanks to Carbo. The following describes on of the hardest-working single shifts ever turned in by a Star:

The Red Wings were less than two minutes away from a return trip to the Stanley Cup Finals when Carbonneau took matters into his own hands. Carbo crashed behind the Detroit net full speed, stole the puck from Nicklas Lidstrom, attempted a goal-mouth feed but got tripped up.

He got back on his feet, sent it back to Sergei Zubov at the right point, and took a return feed at the bottom of the right faceoff circle. Carbonneau's severe-angle wrist shot just barely defelected off Lidstrom's stick and over Osgood's shoulder with 1:25 remaining.

"All we were trying to do is create a chance and just try to get something on the net," Carbonneau said. "We were very desperate at that time and we dug down and did all we could do. Nobody wanted the season to be over."

And, thanks to Guy's heroic efforts, he helped to insure his career playoff game No. 190 wasn't his last. So far, Carbonneau appears ready to return for one last season, putting off temporary plans to take a coaching position in the league after he's finally done.

DISAPPOINTMENTS: Of all time? Absolutely, positively, can't be any other thing than the terrible crime that was Bryan Marchment's hit on Joe Nieuwendyk. With one run to the boards, Marchment stole away any hopes the Stars had to advance to the Cup finals.

Nieuwendyk had already taken the team lead in scoring and leadership (captain Derian Hatcher aside), and was recognized league-wide as one of the most-talented, best-persevering centers still playing the game.

Nieuwendyk has been in the unenviable position of playing second-fiddle to Modano ever since he arrived in Dallas. But, this last season saw Joe emerge from Modano's shadow and back into the limelight, reclaiming his spot as one of the league's premier centermen.

Of course, Modano could have stolen all the glory had he not been injured, but Joe's contributions to the team transcended point scoring.

Nieuwendyk's 39 goals were seventh in the NHL and he finished as the highest-scoring Canadian-born player. Joe wrapped up the regular season with a bang, scoring 14 points (seven goals and seven assists) over his final nine games, including multiple-point games in four of five contests from April 6 through April 15.

On April 13, Nieuwendyk was named the NHL's Player of the Week for the period ending April 12. During that week, Nieuwendyk had five goals and three assists.

Overall, Nieuwendyk was second in the league and set a new Stars record with 11 game-winning goals. He also finished fifth in the NHL with a shooting percentage of 19.2, tied for fifth in power play goals with 14 and tied for 22nd in points with 69. Nieuwendyk paced the Stars in goals, points, power play goals, game-winning goals, shooting percentage and shots on goal (203) while finishing fourth in assists with 30.

His 59.5% faceoff-win percentage was the best in the league.

It Just Should Not Have Happened This Way, People.

At the 2:22 mark of the first period of the first game vs. San Jose of the 1997-1998 playoffs for Dallas, Joe Nieuwendyk cruised in uncontested, with his talented Finnish winger Juha Lind buzzing at his side, easily scoring a sweet goal on the breakaway against San Jose's Mike Vernon. 37 seconds later, Joe's linemate Juha Lind broke in and scored again, just about as easily. Were those pylons or Sharks defenders?

Instead of finishing the game, and continuing on as the Stars' MVP, as well as helping his team claim the Stanley Cup, a scant few minutes later Joe Nieuwendyk lay on the ice of Reunion Arena, writhing in pain, his hockey career flashing before his eyes.

A surprised Bryan Marchment skated away sheepishly, looking up in disbelief and smiling as he surveyed the damage, much like the possessed girl Megan in the Exorcist movie did as she looked in disbelief at the dead old priest that lay before her on the floor. Her/his devilish grin only hiding the black, dark, unfathomable evil that lurked just behind the eye's cold, glassy stare...

OFF-SEASON CHANGES: Dallas lost it's only enforcer, Patrick Cote, to the expansion draft. The Dallas team claims it can win by being team-tough, but that theory requires that you have a fully staffed team dressed for the game. Without a goon in the lineup, Dallas lost all its best talent to - G O O N S. See how that works? Dallas needs an enforcer. You can't be team tough when your team is short-handed and banged up.

* Cote never had a chance to make his mark in Dallas, having missed most of the season with a mysterious shoulder injury.

* Most of the team will be returning. The major question marks concern aging veterans such as Craig Muni, Guy Carbonneau, and Craig Ludwig. Of the three, only Carbonneau appears to be a sure thing to return so far. Ludwig will probably return, but he and Muni might end up being the odd-men out if push came to shove.

* Jere Lehtinen was awarded the Selke Trophy for best defensive forward. This was his first win, coming after his second-straight nomination. Congratulations are in order all the way around for Lehtinen, who also just got married in his native Finland.

* Nieuwendyk should be returning to play stronger than even last season, because he will have two, fresh reconstructed knees to play on. Joe had been playing with some injury to one of the knees the entire season. Marchment's hit just wrecked the other and forced the issue. Modano will most likely have a serious run for his money by Joe Nieuwendyk. Look out, Mo! Better start scoring early!

* Craig Muni, Pat Verbeek, and Ed Belfour all have undergone minor surgeries, and all three are expected back by preseason.

* Richard Matvichuk's agent inexplicably advised Matty to wait several weeks after the season ended to undergo major surgery to his damaged knee. Matty played with a brace for the last three months of the season. Since he waited to get the surgery, Matvichuk will now be out of the Stars lineup until well into December.

That isn't the way this reporter would have attempted to have his client's stock rise in the Dallas Stars franchise. Now Matty won't get a chance to prove his worth to the team for a new contract negotiation until a fair amount of the season has already been played.

Them damn agents, ruining the whole damn game! What a smart guy this is! DUH! Hey, Matty - I will be your agent for much less than that puke is stealing from you - and I will advise you in YOUR best interests, not mine! Gimme a call - I'm available immediately! : )

* Dallas still needs one more scoring center to take the pressure off of Modano and Nieuwendyk.

* The Stars absolutely have to stock up on big, tough, wings that can finish. Now that Greg Adams' career appears to be waning because of recurring injuries, Dallas will soon be in the market for a few power forwards on the wing. Especially on the left wing, where Benoit Hogue and Juha Lind will be pretty much the only threats left on the left. Huh? Whatsat?

* Barring any moves by Richard Matvichuk, the only moves for the d-men may be to trade or release Muni and Ludwig for youth and mobility. Zubov, Hatcher, Chambers and Sydor aren't likely to be changing a thing.

* Otherwise, it's pretty much more of the same for Dallas. Belfour should come back as strong as ever. Hitchcock now has the all-important trial by fire he needed at the NHL level in the playoffs, so his strategies should be even that much more sound for next year.

* Now, if they can just figure out how to score a few more goals at even strength...

Congratulations on an amazing season, Dallas. Thanks for some seriously cool memories. Looking forward to seeing that Cup in Big-D next season!

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