If ever there was a goaltender that personified the stereotype that goalies are a different breed:moody, superstitious, and routine oriented, it would be Ed Belfour. His quirks, combined with his undying work ethic and passion to succeed, made him a Stanley Cup champion and one of the game’s greats – and recently a member of the Hockey Hall Of Fame.

While other goaltenders his age were being drafted in to the NHL and spending their days in the CHL, the un-drafted Belfour spent his junior years with the Winkler Flyers of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League. At the age of 21, he moved on to the NCAA and lead the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux to a national championship. Finally, someone would take notice and the Chicago Blackhawks signed the free agent Belfour in 1987, though he spent the better part of the next two seasons playing with their minor league affiliate Saginaw Hawks of the IHL.

The Eagle would take the league by storm with the Blackhawks in 1990. He captured the Calder, the Vezina, and was named to the NHL’s 1st All-Star Team. His Hawks were ousted by the Minnesota North Stars in round one that year, but Eddie would take his Hawks all the way to the Cup Final the following year. They lost four straight to Mario Lemieux and the Penguins in a series that saw every game except one won by just one goal. Regular season success was no problem for Belfour, but playoff success seemed to be hard to come by and naturally questions began to arise. Could he win the big one ?

Despite his successes and accolades league wide, Belfour fell out of favor with the Hawks – as they did with him too during the 1996-97 season, and he would be traded to the San Jose Sharks. His play seemed to be on a down slide and he would become a UFA in the summer. Meanwhile, the Dallas Stars seemed to be just one or two pieces away from greatness. Andy Moog had been the Stars goaltender since the move to Dallas and it seemed an improvement at the position was a dire need. Bob Gainey would take a chance on Ed Belfour and he would not be disappointed. Belfour took the Stars from good to great, helping them capture their first ever President’s Trophy in 1998. With a 1.88 GAA and a .916 SV%, his numbers were incredible and the improvement in goal was obvious. His popularity in Dallas was through the roof and Reunion Arena was filled with chants of ” Eddie ! Eddie ! Eddie ! ” several times per game.

Belfour was huge for the Stars on the run to their first Stanley Cup as he bettered Grant Fuhr, Patrick Roy, and Dominek Hasek on the way. He posted a 1.67 GAA and a .935 SV% in the playoffs that year and stopped 53 of 54 shots in nearly six periods of play to outlast Hasek in that final game. If that doesn’t prove he could win the big one, I don’t know what does. Though Nieuwendyk won the Conn Smythe, that could have just as easily have been The Eagle receiving the honor.

He would come up big for the Stars in the 2000 playoffs as well, of course falling just short. Just like Nieuwendyk, his final season with the Stars would be 2001-02. Belfour would continue to play another four seasons and into his 40′s where he would remain among the league’s best.

Your goaltender is your final line of defense, and Belfour brought a nearly impenetrable  one to the Stars. His will to win, his fiery competitiveness, and his focus made him one of the best goalies ever to play the game.

The Stars will honor him in a pregame ceremony tonight for his recent induction in to hockey’s holy land – the Hall Of Fame.

They acquired him in what was probably the biggest deal on deadline day last year, and now they’ve given him a contract extension worth $18.4 million over the next four years – that works out to $4.6 million per, just to save you the math.

The 26 year old Minnesota native has struggled to show the same form he showed when he came over from Pittsburgh last year, notching five goals and 15 points in his 23 games with the Stars. So far this season he has the exact same offensive numbers, but over 36 games and he’s also a -6. Definitely not the numbers he or anyone else had hoped for.

Goligoski was brought in to give mobility to the Stars inept puck moving back end. Trading away James Neal was huge risk by Joe Nieuwendyk, and many Stars fans still question the move as Neal is currently lighting the lamp in Pittsburgh at a pretty good clip – with 26 goals and 46 points in 48 games. Not to rub that in, but to give my own opinion Goligoski needs to produce more to make that trade seem a little less lopsided. After all, that is what he was brought in to do.

Never the less, the Stars feel confident that Goligoski’s numbers will improve and he can be a true puck moving defenseman and as well as quarterback the powerplay. He’ll now have another four years to prove them right.

What the signing does though is lock up part of the core of this team, and it gives the franchise some much needed stability moving forward.

Goligoski was scheduled to become an RFA this coming summer.

On a normal night, you want to have your star players out play the other team’s star players. Things are a little different right now for the Stars as Mike Ribeiro is on the IR for what appears to be another couple weeks after suffering a tear to his MCL against Edmonton on January 7, and now Jamie Benn is out for a couple weeks after having an appendectomy Sunday.

Without your big guns, your end goal doesn’t change at all but the means in which to achieve it takes a little change in game strategy. The Stars have played two games now with both centers out, losing a very tight 1-0 game in St.Louis on Monday getting great goaltending from Kari Lehtonen, and now losing 3-2 in a shootout at home against Detroit Tuesday night. Richard Bachman was given the go against the Wings and stopped 30 of 32 shots, continuing to make a name for himself.

Wins haven’t come easy for this team over the past two months, and things don’t appear to get any easier. The point against the Wings moves the Stars in to 9th place in the West and even though they sit just one point back of 8th place Minnesota with a game in hand, it’s going to take wins rather than charity points to move up in the standings rather than sit on the outside looking in.

The Stars next game is at home Friday against the Lightning.

Unlike 15-20 years ago, playing .500 hockey just doesn’t cut it in the NHL. The win-one-lose-one pattern the Stars have been in for a while now has slowly worked them out of a playoff position.

The Stars sat atop the entire league heading in to a game vs the Penguins back on November the 11th, and since then have won just 11 of 24 games. They currently sit in 9th place in the West, even after Thursday night’s win against the 8th place Nashville Predators. They’ve bounced back and forth between holding the top spot in the Pacific and the 6-7-8 spots in the conference, but have gradually slid down the totem pole as other teams have picked up their pace and have put together winning streaks- which is exactly what the Stars are going to have to do to put the breaks on this gradual slide.

With the three point games and so much parody in the league nowadays, if you’re not moving up the standings you’re moving down. Heading in to the season, most experts picked the Stars to finish at or near the bottom of the conference while most Stars fans figured the team would be exactly where they are now – battling it out for one of the final playoff spots.

There’s still half a season to go ( 43 games to be exact as I write this ) and the Stars can either prove the fan base right by putting together the type of streak that had them sitting atop the league in mid November, or they can continue the current pace and prove that the analysts do know what they’re talking about after all.

No time like the present to put together such a streak. The Stars have the opportunity to make it two in a row at home against Edmonton Saturday afternoon.

An injury to Kari Lehtonen lead to a sort of musical chairs for Stars goalies, and the man standing without a spot in the lineup when the music stopped is Andrew Raycroft.

Young Richard Bachman was brought up from Texas to backup Raycroft, but after Raycroft struggled in back to back games Bachman was given his shot. He went on to win three in a row on the road, including a 1-0 shutout in New York , and Raycroft’s fate was sealed. With Lehtonen returning from injury, Raycroft was placed on waivers and after clearing, has been demoted to the Texas Stars.

Meanwhile, Stars number one pick in 2010 Jack Campbell has been a focus in the World Junior tournament in Alberta. His USA squad was one of the favorites going in and Campbell was expected to come up big being this is his third year playing in the tournament. It didn’t quite work out that way and Campbell’s US squad now finds themselves on the outside looking in, finishing out of the top three in their pool and ineligible for a medal.

As a goalie you believe you should stop every shot, but the fact is the US just gave up too many in-close chances and odd man rushes to give themselves, and especially their goalies, a chance. Against both the Czech Republic and Canada, the US hung Campbell out to dry several times and the team just wasn’t efficient enough in the offensive zone, despite firing more than 50 shots at the Czechs. Against Canada, they pretty much let the team in red have their way with Campbell in the first and found themselves down 3-0. Campbell was as stellar as you could expect your goalie to be though and held the Canadians off the score sheet the rest of the way. The US fired two past Canada goalie Scott Wedgewood but it was just too little too late.

With Andrew Raycroft’s contract up at the end of the year, a spot will be opening up somewhere in the Stars organization. It’s a good bet that management would like Campbell to gain pro experience down in Texas before he makes the jump to the NHL,  but if he keeps battling, especially the way he did against the Canadians, he’s sure to at least challenge Richard Bachman and Tyler Beskorowany and give us all assurance that the goal tending future of the Stars is very bright.

Whoever thought that Richard Bachman would be brought up from Texas to win three in a row for the Stars so far and put up a .970 SV% with a 0.90 GAA, stand up. Okay now sit down because you’re a liar.

When Kari Lehtonen was injured in a 3-0 loss to the Coyotes on November 26, the load fell on backup Andrew Raycroft’s shoulders and farm hand Richard Bachman took over Raycroft’s spot on the bench. The Stars won their next two and Andrew Raycroft was stellar in those wins, but then lost their next two giving up five goals in each. It seemed logical to give the 24 year old Bachman his first ever start to see what he can do, especially after he stopped all eleven shots in relief of Raycroft in San Jose last Thursday, but heading in to Los Angeles for the second game of a five game road trip seemed a daunting task.

Fast forward three games and Richard Bachman is turning heads. A 2-1 win in Los Angeles, his first shutout in a 1-0 win at Madison Square Garden in New York on Tuesday, and a 3-2 victory on Long Island over the Islanders Thursday has the Stars on a nice little winning streak and it’s turning out to be a successful road trip so far. Bachman has now stopped all but three of the 99 shots he’s faced on this road trip and has helped the Stars move up in the standings when a road trip like this could potentially be a killer, especially when your number one is on the shelf.

The Salt Lake City born Bachman was drafted by the Stars with the 120th pick in the 2006 NHL draft. He’s played the last two seasons on the Stars farm club and appeared in his first NHL game against the Coyotes last season while stopping the four shots he faced.

What’s a guy gotta do to become a premier hitter in the NHL ? I guess play for the Leafs or Red Wings. Okay that’s a little off; I don’t actually think that Brendan Shanahan has that sort of bias when it comes to his job, but it would sure look that way when you consider who gets suspended for a certain hit and who doesn’t.

Niklas Kronwall, who I like and is a great hitter, clearly leaves his feet during many of his bone-crushing checks. Luke Schenn let’s Tomas Vincour come down his trolley tracks a couple weeks ago and clearly leaves his feet to deliver a rather high check, one that left proof on Vincour’s face of some elbow to head contact, yet not even a slap on the wrist. Most of Kronwall’s checks, as well as Schenn’s check on Vincour, are almost exact to what Mark Fistric was suspended for yesterday and likely a little worse.

Last Saturday night in Dallas, Mark Fistric backs up as the Islanders Nino Niederreiter skates directly down his trolley tracks, then times a perfectly clean check in to Niederreiter’s shoulder, and gets three games for what Shanahan labels “charging”. Brendan Shanahan. He also claims that Fistric was too high off his feet for his liking. The “charging” description is completely off base considering the following:

1. Fistric is moving backwards prior to the check, like you see most defensemen do while the opposing team is attacking.

2. He takes not even one stride towards Niederreiter, but rather angles himself at the last second to make the check.

3. Primary contact is with Niederreiter’s shoulder.

4. Fistric’s feet are planted as contact is made, as you can clearly see in the picture. The upwards motion immediately after is caused by the impact and as anyone who’s played hockey knows, you explode in to your check. Shanahan admits this, but claims Fistric’s feet are just too high for his liking. Yet his feet only left the ice after contact is made and the reason for them being as high as they were was strictly due to the force of the impact between the two players.

So basically the suspension is for Fistric hitting Niederreiter just a little too hard and timing his hit just a little too perfect.

I guess this is the new NHL. I guess the message Mark Fistric is getting from Shanahan is to stand completely still and wait for the player to come to if you want to deliver a check, and don’t forget to put as little force behind it as possible. Is that about right Mr.Shanahan ? Is that the NHL you’re creating here ?

Now I’m not about to compare my hockey resume to Brendan Shanahan’s, but I have played all my life and what Fistric did was exactly the way you’re taught to deliver a clean check.

You’re completely wrong with this one Brendan. 100%.

Also in Stars happenings, Krys Barch was dealt to the Florida Panthers yesterday along with a 2012 6th round pick for 23 year old minor league player Jake Hauswirth and a 2012 5th round pick. Barch is in his 6th NHL season, all with the Stars, but has only managed to play in ten games so far this season. With the Stars adding more depth in the off season, he just couldn’t find a regular spot in the lineup. He should get more of a chance in Florida to display his scrappy style of play.

With the expansion and relocation explosion in the 1990s, the NHL abolished the old four divisions and split the teams in to six, and in the process abolished the old divisional playoff format and adopted the current 1 through 8 set up. Newer fans of the game probably never batted an eye as the difference between the two was never felt. If you’re one of those fans though and you’re reading this, please believe me when I say that the NHL was much more exciting back then. I’m not speaking about the game on the ice, though I preferred it back then too, but I’m speaking solely on the rivalries.

Rivalry is what really drives sport. It’s the difference between not liking your opponent, and truly hating them. Without that hate, where’s the intensity ? The drama ?

The previous format of four divisions and the divisional playoff format was started before the 1981-82 season and was abolished after the 1992-93 season. In those twelve seasons, the North Stars would face the Blackhawks six times for Norris division supremacy and the Blues five times. Repetitive ? Of course, but hat’s what built the hate. Did it get old ? Not at all. The players hated the players, the fans hated the fans, and I think even the Zamboni drivers hated each other. Rivalries across the league were in place before the drop of the puck even in a regular season game and when it came to the playoffs, you didn’t have to wait three or four games to try to find some sort of story line to bring drama to a series.

Since the change back in 1993, the Stars have built rivalries with the Oilers and the Avalanche, but those were by chance and have pretty much faded since. In the divisional format, rivalries don’t face, they only grow.

The Stars new division as of next year will look like this:

1. Chicago Blackhawks
2. Columbus Blue Jackets
3. Dallas Stars
4. Detroit Red Wings
5. Minnesota Wild
6. Nashville Predators
7. St.Louis Blues
8. Winnipeg Jets

The top four qualify for the playoffs and it will be a 1 vs 4 , 2 vs 3 format. The two winners will square off for division supremacy. If the season were to end today under the new format, the Stars would play the Wild and the Hawks would square off with the Wings. Pretty interesting match-ups.

With Alex Goligoski still out, Adam Burish breaking his hand two weeks ago, Brenden Morrow and Kari Lehtonen recently being placed on injured reserve, the Stars are finding ways to win hockey games.

The Stars lost both Alex Goligoski and Adam Burish during a five game losing streak in mid November, before defeating the Edmonton Oilers 4-1 at home on November 21st. Captain Brenden Morrow was then placed on the IR afterwards with an upper body injury and in last Saturday’s game against the Coyotes, Kari Lehtonen suffered a groin injury and will be out at least 3 weeks.

Still, the Stars find themselves winning hockey games and have clawed their way back in to the Pacific Division lead. Including Thursday’s 3-2 home win vs Ottawa, they’ve put together a 4-1-1 record since the losing streak and have gotten scoring from just about everywhere in the lineup.

Lack of depth was something that helped sink the Stars in recent years especially last, but this year key acquisitions in the off season like Vernon Fiddler, Radek Dvorak, and Sheldon Souray have helped right the ship and keep the Stars afloat.

One acquisition made almost by fluke back in mid October has been key. Since Eric Nystrom has joined the Stars, he’s been more than anyone could have hoped for. Nobody would have pegged him to score more goals than any other Stars player over the first 20 games following his signing, but he has. In his 20 games so far he’s racked up nine goals and eleven points and has been an inspiration with his energy and enthusiasm.

Though no longer a new comer, Andrew Raycroft has held the fort in goal so far since Lehtonen’s injury, stopping 35 of 36 shots in Colorado on Monday in a 3-1 win, and coming up big again vs Ottawa stopping 34 of 35 including a point blank glove on Daniel Alfredsson as the last second ticked off the clock.

The Stars’ next game is Saturday at home vs the Islanders.

The wait is over.  The Dallas Stars have a new owner, which means the uncertainty this franchise and it’s fanbase has gone through the past couple years has finally turned in to certainty.

Vancouver businessman Tom Gaglardi can breathe a sigh of relief as well as it’s been a long, dragged out process to complete the purchase. Jim Lites has also been named President and CEO of the Stars by Gaglardi. Lites held the position twice previously, from 1993 to 2003 and 2003 to 2007 so he’s very familiar with the franchise and the fans.

This doesn’t mean that money is about to be thrown around because we have it, it means that money can and will be put in to every aspect that makes up a successful franchise. From marketing, to having the right people in charge from top to bottom, and of course yes the players on the ice. Gaglardi said he believes successful franchises are built from within, but he realizes that other moves can be made to help and he gives Nieuwendyk the go ahead to do so if need be. That’s something Joe hasn’t had since his tenure with the team began.

It should be pointed out that the last two times the Stars changed hands, they made the Cup Final not long after. Norm Green purchased the North Stars back in 1990 and they advanced to the final in 1991, and of course the club winning it’s Stanley Cup in 1999 just three years after Tom Hicks took the reigns back in 1996. A new owner doesn’t guarantee the same immediate success, but it will sure help and Mr.Gaglardi seems grounded and dedicated enough, not to mention a big enough fan of the game, that building a winner will be the first thing on his mind.

This is certainly a great moment for the franchise, and a major step in getting it back to the upper echelon of the NHL where it belongs.