“No goals” still haunts the Sabers and their fans 25 years later

BUFFALO, N.Y. — So much has changed over the past 25 years, but one thing remains constant: what the Buffalo Sabers and their loyal fans think about what happened on June 19, 1999.

Any Buffalo sports fan probably doesn’t need to be reminded of what happened when the Sabers hosted the Dallas Stars in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals at Marine Midland Arena, now known as name of KeyBank Center.

Trailing 3-2 in the best-of-7 series, the Sabers lost 2-1 when Brett Hull scored a goal in the third overtime, sending Stars fans into a frenzy. The term “no score” was quickly added to Buffalo’s tortured sports history.

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At the time, NHL rules stated that if part of a player’s skate was visible when a goal was scored, it would not count.

“Countless goals were overturned during the regular season because of the rule,” longtime 2 On Your Side sports reporter Stu Boyer said in 2019. “Before the playoffs started, the league communicated with the teams that the rule was changing, that it would not be called the same in the playoffs as in the regular season.

In this case, the league said that because Hull had possession of the puck before entering the crease, the goal stood.

Hull discussed this play during his Hockey Hall of Fame induction speech in 2009.

“We all knew they changed the rule, but obviously the NHL decided not to tell anyone other than the teams. … They changed the rule to say if you have control in the pregnant, you can score the goal, and that’s exactly what it was,” Hull said. “But no one knows that. You can tell people that a million times and they just won’t listen.”