Hitchcock Plot Gives Adams a Starring Role

Dallas Coach Ken Hitchcock played a hunch by putting slumping Greg Adams on a checking line.

Like most of Hitchcock’s hunches this season, this one paid off as Adams scored twice in the second period to help the Stars stop the New Jersey Devils’ four-game winning streak with a 3-1 victory in a matchup of conference leaders at Dallas.

“He put me on a line with two good defensive guys [veteran checkers Guy Carbonneau and Mike Keane] and when they’re on the ice, I have more freedom to jump in on the offensive side,” said Adams, once a 36-goal scorer. “I think it really helped me.”

Adams had scored only one goal in his last 16 games before breaking out against the Eastern Conference-leading Devils.

“The lack of focus in his game was evident by his body language,” Hitchcock said. “So putting him in the checking role was to take the pressure off him.”

New Jersey remained the NHL leader in points with 99, two more than Dallas.

Detroit 4, Buffalo 2--Steve Yzerman scored two goals to top 1,400 points and also moved into 12th place on the NHL career goal list as the Red Wings beat Dominik Hasek and the Sabres at Detroit.

Yzerman became the 13th player to reach 1,400 points when his long shot deflected off Buffalo defenseman Bob Boughner and past Hasek 3:40 into the third.

It gave the Red Wings a 2-1 lead, then Kris Draper scored at 5:11 to give Detroit a two-goal margin.

Yzerman has scored 561 goals to pass Guy Lafleur on the all-time NHL list.

Ottawa 1, Pittsburgh 1--Magnus Arvedson scored in the third period as the Senators, who haven’t won at Pittsburgh in six years--salvaged a tie.

Since joining the NHL in 1992, the Senators are 0-12-3 at the Civic Arena and 2-22-5 overall against the Penguins.

The Senators dominated the second period, outshooting Pittsburgh, 12-2, but couldn’t beat rookie goaltender Peter Skudra until Arvedson scored at 5:22 of the third.

Florida 4, Chicago 0--John Vanbiesbrouck made 27 saves in his fourth shutout of the season and Viktor Kozlov scored twice at Chicago.

Ed Jovanovski and Radek Dvorak also scored for Florida, which has won three in a row following a 13-game losing streak.