“It probably took six hours”

– I remember few goals, but I do remember that one, Jere Lehtinen says of his 1999 Stanley Cup championship goal.

Dallas Stars, represented by Lehtinen, played the sixth final game as a guest of the Buffalo Sabres, and the 2-1 hit that decided the championship came only at the end of the third overtime.

– A memorable game. It probably lasted six hours, Lehtinen remembers.

– The puck came in the attack end on the left under the blue From Mike Modano to me, and I just threw it at the target when I saw that Brett Hull is there.

Buffalo goalie Dominik Hasek blocked Lehtinen’s quick shot in front of him.

– Hull twisted with Paki and was able to shovel in the puck.

The second knee shot sent Dallas into jubilation, but the goal also caused speculation, as Hull’s second skate was in the goalie’s area.

– In that season, there was a rule that no part of the foot could be over the border of the goalkeeper’s area. It was in the area, but when the puck was in possession, the goal was accepted, Lehtinen explains.

– However, when you ask the people of Buffalo, they still say that no goal he chuckles.

– Fortunately, that rule remained for that one season.

Information for the barracks

Lehtinen, who turns 50 on Midsummer’s Day, June 24, moved to the NHL at the age of 22 in 1995.

European players were not yet valued in North America in the same way as they are today, which is reflected by Lehtinen’s fourth-round pick number 88 in the summer 1992 draft.

The previous spring, at only 18 years old, he had won the Lions’ first ever World Cup medal, the silver in Prague.

– After the games, I went straight to the int. I was in Lahti at the Hennala barracks when I was called that you have a call. There were no cell phones then, only a hallway phone. My parents called that you are booked. I was like, okay, and then things continued there, Lehtinen recalls his penniless NHL reservation.

The departure was moved

The club moved from Minnesota to Texas in 1993 and the following summer offered Lehtinen, who at that time already had another World Cup silver and Olympic bronze in his trophy cabinet, a one-way contract.

– My agent Don Baizley got it agreed, but I started to think about it myself. I felt that I was not yet ready game-wise, physically and mentally. Baizley noticed it and said that then it was better not to leave just yet. That you listen to yourself, and he’ll take care of things with Dallas.

– Then we moved forward a year, and I didn’t think about it at all anymore. The offer was the same, and then I was done.

Postponing the initial decision paid off. A demanding head coach Vladimir Yursinov in the spring of 1995, Lehtinen, who stayed at school, won the Finnish championship in TPS and, as a crown, the Lions’ first world championship.

– It was a great year.

Next to Modano

Lehtinen’s first NHL season was a run-in to a different puck culture. There were 57 NHL games and 28 power points in them.

He played an experienced center forward in the early season by Dave Gagner alongside.

– You have to give him credit. Dallas was at the bottom then and I myself was sometimes in the stands. Gagner supported me and told me to go ahead, you’re a good player. That autumn was important to me.

In January, Gagner was traded to Toronto and Ken Hitchcock was appointed as the new head coach of the Stars.

It was the initial impetus for a union made in heaven, when Hitchcock placed Lehtinen in the number one chain led by Modano.

Although, first Lehtinen had time to command “three games” to the farm in Kalamazoo.

– However, it only lasted one game. That was the turning point and when I came back from there I started playing with Modano.

The American center, three years older than the Finn, had already reached the 100-point mark, and the two played together throughout Lehtinen’s 15-year NHL career.

– We didn’t have to talk much on the bench or on the field. In that sense, it was different than with Saku, he compares his TPS and national team times to the center Saku to Koivuu.

– Saku wanted to speculate a lot, but Modano was a quiet leader. We kind of had an unspoken chemistry. We were friends on and off the field and we are still in touch.

A bitter defeat

The end of the decade was a great rise not only for Lehtinen’s career, but also for the Dallas team, and in the spring of 1998 it already advanced to the conference finals as the number one in the regular season.

However, the road was broken in the sixth game as a guest of Detroit, which was on its way to the championship.

– I remember the feeling after the game in the booth, Lehtinen says, referring to the reaction of the players who suffered a bitter defeat.

– A few more experienced players said to remember this moment. It was the starting shot for the next season.

Then the team repaired the damage and took their own, but they got nothing for free.

– Even if you are the early favorite, anything can happen in the playoffs.

Dallas, who won the regular season again, was a superstar in the conference finals, traveling to the sixth game with a 2-3 loss by Peter Forsberg led by the Colorado Avalanche as a guest.

This time, the Dallas corner held. The attitude borrowed from the previous spring led to convincing 4–1 victories in both the six-game and stoppage game.

Sports city

In the finals, they also faced the Buffalo Sabres, who were chasing the first Stanley Cup in their club history.

Lehtinen became the hero of the sixth final match that decided the 1+1 championship.

The championship parade gathered huge crowds on the streets of Dallas.

– I don’t remember the official one, but there would have been 250,000 people, Lehtinen estimates.

– It reflects the sports culture of Dallas. When you look at the Yankee scale, the Stars are fourth there, but yes, we passed the Mavericks at that point.

In addition to the Stars and the basketball team Mavericks, American football’s Cowboys and baseball’s Texas Rangers also play in the major professional leagues in the metropolitan area of ​​nearly seven million inhabitants.

– Yes, the importance of Stars for the city and the community is also very big. There started to be training halls around the bucket, and players who grew up in Dallas have started to become draftees, says Lehtinen, citing as an example the top defenseman currently representing the Chicago Blackhawks by Seth Jones.

Dallas advanced to the finals the following spring as well, but lost them 2–4 to the New Jersey Devils.

– Year by year I began to understand better how difficult it is to win the Stanley Cup. I was lucky to win it once.

Clear Trophies

Lehtinen’s rapid development is reflected in the fact that already in his second NHL season he was nominated to win the Selke Trophy for the best defensive forward. In the third season, he already won it, and in all, the prestigious award was presented to him no less than three times.

– You get satisfaction and joy from the success of the team. For me, Selke has been such that then the team and chain have played well, Lehtinen says.

– But I do appreciate it, and I see the fact that I was nominated six times as even more important than three wins. My playing style was what the award is. When you play for a team, then you are noticed.

Conscientiousness and a hard work ethic in defense, combined with the ability to score, shaped Lehtinen into a player to whom wingers who cherish similar values ​​in their game are still compared today.

– It was probably a question of character, Lehtinen, known as the prototype of a team player, reflects on his playing style.

– I have also gained a lot from football. I played most of the time as a libero, defenseman, and top scorer, and I think that’s where that placement came into hockey.

Lehtinen played football in FC Honga until B-juniors, and his youth hobbies also included ice ball in EJK.

– With football, I had to choose a sport when I went to Kiekko-Espoon A. It was the right choice, he says – and it’s easy to agree with the words.

The greatest honor

Of the honors he has received, Lehtinen values ​​the freezing of his game numbers even more than the Selke awards.

Espoon Blues has frozen his Kiekko-Espoon number 10 and Leijonat and Dallas Stars number 26.

– A shirt suspension is the biggest thing you can get from the team personally. It’s kind of incomprehensible, he says.

– I am proud that I played in one team my entire NHL career. Dallas trusted me, and I didn’t want to leave there myself.