One man reached the Hockey Hall of Fame so long ago it’s nearly forgotten. The other coached in the league for so long that he hasn’t arrived in Toronto yet, but one day will. Meanwhile, Ed Belfour and Ken Hitchcock will be reunited next season when they are enshrined in the Dallas Stars Hall of Fame.
The club created its own special class for players and builders last year, a tip of the cap to those who don’t get numbers retired like Mike Modano, Jere Lehtinen and Sergei Zubov.
Former Coach/GM Bob Gainey and captain Derian Hatcher were enshrined a year ago. On Tuesday morning, the club announced that the goaltending star of the club’s Stanley Cup champions along with its hard-driving head coach would comprise the Class of 2023. The two were elected by a vote of the team’s committee on June 15.
Belfour made it to the Hockey Hall of Fame 12 years ago, shortly after the end of an 18-year run that included a remarkable five-year stay in Dallas. The Stars went to the Western Conference finals in Belfour’s first three seasons, winning the Stanley Cup in his second (1999) and returning to the Cup Final and losing to New Jersey in 2000.
Dallas won 30 playoff games in those back-to-back runs to the Final and Belfour not only was in the net for every game, he produced seven shutouts in that stretch. His goals against (1.67 and 1.90) and save percentages (.930 and .931) in those two playoffs were nothing short of phenomenal.
Along the way, he outdueled Colorado’s more highly decorated Patrick Roy twice in those conference finals and beat the finest goalie of his era, Buffalo’s Dominik Hasek, to bring the Cup to Dallas. Expect no shortage of “Eddie … Eddie’' cries this fall when Belfour is recognized one more time at American Airlines Center.
Hitchcock arrived in Dallas about a year-and-a-half before Belfour. Replacing Gainey as coach during the 1995-96 season, the successful juniors and minor league coach did not achieve immediate results. The team missed the playoffs.
But in Hitchcock’s first full season, the Stars jumped to first place in the Central Division before losing a heart-breaking seven-game series to the Edmonton Oilers. It was the start of a rivalry Hitchcock’s teams would dominate from that point forward. The team realized it had been outplayed in the net by the Oilers’ Curtis Joseph, and Belfour was a quick free-agent signee that summer.
Then the Stars took off.
Once you get past Tom Landry and Jimmy Johnson on the local stage, Hitchcock is the only coach of the Stars, Mavericks, Rangers or Cowboys to bring home a championship and to play for two of them. He did it with the Stars back-to-back.
To illustrate how challenging it is for a coach to guide the Stars to three straight conference finals, note that this spring marked Dallas’ third such trip in more than 20 years since Hitchcock left in 2002. And, needless to say, no Cups have been added to the cupboard.
Hitchcock is not only the Stars’ most successful coach by far, but he finished his career ranked No. 4 all-time in NHL wins with 849. Beyond that, of the top 20 coaches in wins, he ranks fourth in winning percentage behind only Scotty Bowman, Joel Quenneville and Mike Babcock.
Hitchcock’s candor and openness with the media did almost as much to sell the product in the early days of the National Hockey League’s arrival in Texas as the team’s success on the ice.
I don’t know that moving forward the team needs to continue to add a builder alongside a player each season. Gainey and Hitchcock were virtually automatic selections. But there are maybe a dozen good choices as players worthy of recognition without getting into the modern-day squad. Regardless, there won’t be a more popular duo honored in Dallas than the coming class.
Twitter: @TimCowlishaw