Imagine if this year’s feel-good story, the Ottawa Senators, had not only rallied to squeak into the playoffs but proceeded to knock off the Presidents’ Trophy-winning New York Rangers in the first round, the second-overall Montreal Canadiens in Round 2, and the defending champion Los Angeles Kings in the semi-finals.
Now imagine if those same Senators made it to the Stanley Cup Final despite an indifferent fanbase, an owner threatening to move the club to the San Francisco Bay Area and a sub-.500 regular-season record after dropping five of their last six to close out the season.
If you can conjure up all that adversity in your mind’s eye, you now have a glimpse of what it was like to watch the 1990-91 Minnesota North Stars, a Cinderella story worth retelling as the Wild prepare to host the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 3 of their second-round series Tuesday.
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After the first practice of each training camp, former North Stars general manager Jack Ferreira would approach veteran sniper Brian Bellows with the same question: “How’s the first-round pick?”
Each fall, Bellows would give one of two answers. Either ‘Eh… he’s OK.’ Or, ‘No.’
The answer changed in the fall of 1989, when Ferreira asked Bellows’ his thoughts on their 1990 first-overall pick out of Michigan, Mike Modano.
“He’s the real thing,” Bellows told his GM at the time. “All it takes is one hour on the ice and you can tell: his skill, his sense, his speed, everything.”
Brian Bellows is now 50 years old. He saw Modano at a charity tournament this past weekend for the first time in a decade, and the sight whisked him back to those North Stars days.
“He had to be 18, and I was 23 or 24. Unfortunately now he’s 44 and he looks like he’s 24. I’m like, ‘Mike, you better wear your badge, because nobody’s gonna recognize you as an ex-player.’
“He’s like Rob Lowe. You know those Rob Lowe commercials? He hasn’t aged,” Brian, uh, bellows.
“Everybody knows the North Stars… The fans got their hearts ripped out when we left.” — Mike Modano
Modano was living with a family in Minnesota his rookie season, 1989-90, the calm before the run, but he wanted a change. The way Willie Mitchell would adopt Aaron Ekblad 25 years later, Bellows (a bachelor back then) invited the teenage phenom to live with him. Bellows scored 55 that season; his billet racked up 29. The North Stars were ousted in five games by the St. Louis Blues early in the playoffs, and Bellows is still bitter Modano didn’t see more ice.
“They brought him along slowly, played him on the third or fourth line — and they shouldn’t have,” Bellows recalls. “They should’ve just busted him right in.”
Gotta See It: Highlights of the 1991 North Stars’ Cinderella run
The North Stars went through some big changes prior to the start of the 1990-91 season. Bob Clarke replaced Ferreira as GM. Rookie head coach Bob Gainey replaced Pierre Page behind the bench. A punching bag of the “Chuck Norris Division” (Bellow’s description, and a beauty), Minnesota won just four of its first 23 games in ’90-91, but scrambled late to secure the division’s final playoff spot despite a 27-39-4 record.
“It was a Cinderella story,” says Modano. “We barely got into the playoffs.”
The teams with the best record in the last 30 games (of the regular season) have a higher percentage of going farther than people think, Bellows warns.
“We ended up 16th overall, but were No. 1 overall in the last 30 games.”
Actually, Vancouver had fewer points, 65, than Minny’s 68, but the North Stars immediately drew the first-overall Chicago Blackhawks, who had 38 more points and 22 more wins during the regular season.
Despite winning just eight road games in the regular season, underdog Minnesota defeated Chicago in six, St. Louis in six, then the defending champion Edmonton Oilers in five.
“We knocked off the Presidents’ Trophy team, then the second-overall team, then the Stanley Cup team from the year before, Edmonton, in five. We didn’t lose a home game in the playoffs until we met Pittsburgh in the final. We had a lot of good things going on,” Modano understates.
“We broke records on our power play for goals scored that are still there to this day. We stayed really disciplined and had a lot of luck… timely goals, timely saves, things just went our way. It takes breaks to get to the final.”
“It turned into a raucous, young, fun audience. Tailgaters!” — Brian Bellows
The best part of it all, Bellows says, was that the North Stars stirred the spirit of two cities. Minneapolis and St. Paul were going through tough times financially, the club was struggling to sell tickets, and big-business support for the team was dismal to non-existent.
“But as the playoffs went on and we started winning, it turned into a raucous, young, fun audience. Tailgaters! You didn’t have the corporate base, so it was young and wild and a fun place to play in,” says Bellows, who put up 29 points in 23 playoff games that spring.
“Phenomenal,” Modano adds “The Met Center was loud. The town was crazy. Everybody was really excited. It was probably the only time they’d seen hockey like that.
“We never expected to keep going. We knew we were underdogs and never expected much of ourselves. We played loose, played fun, and ended up having a lot of success because of that.”
It was a thrilling, unexpected ride… until the most dominant player in the game took matters into his own hands.
“By the time we survived those three rounds, we were beaten up and worn out. And they were still playing Modano on the third or fourth line when they should’ve played him every second shift,” Bellows says. “That was a frustration of mine.
“We, as a team, would’ve won the Cup had there not been a guy named Lemieux that wouldn’t let us,” Bellows laments. “A great time… until we lost.”
He can laugh now.
The North Stars stole Game 1 in Pittsburgh, and even held a 2-1 series lead at one point. Then Super Mario (who missed a game due to a back injury) scored 12 points in five games asa the Pens won three straight by a combined score of 19-7 to win the final in six games.
Gotta See It: That Lemieux goal that broke the North Stars’ back
Bellows would later win a Cup with Montreal in ’93; Modano with Dallas in ’99. Bellows now lives in Minnesota, with his allegiances split between the Wild and the Canadiens. A couple of weeks ago, he was out with Wild owner Craig Leipold.
“He’s just so thankful that the fanbase they thought would be there when they started the team is still there. They’ve built a beautiful rink and people come,” Bellows, now an investment trader, says.
“I give credit to Leipold because two years ago when things were on the slide, he spent big money – smart money – to bring [Ryan] Suter and [Zach] Parise in. Sure, at the tail end of their 13-year deals it may not look great, but you have to remember that by signing those guys you now have players who want to go play there — free agency changes. What they did is fantastic.”
Modano moved to Dallas with the Stars and says he doesn’t make it back to the Twin Cities often. Maybe once a year.
“I like the way they play; I like the team,” he says of the Wild. “The building’s great. A great atmosphere. I love that hockey’s back where it should be in that area.”
But when he speaks of the Wild, his voice doesn’t convey the same enthusiasm as it does when recalling those green-and-yellow Met Center days.
“The Wild is a little bit like the step-child, but they’re creating a fanbase just like we did when we started,” Modano says. “It’s getting there. North Star fans were rambunctious. They loved it. It’s the original team; it’s what everybody grew up with. Everybody knows the North Stars.
“There’s diehards, and they got their hearts ripped out when we left. You feel for those fans, and a lot of them still wear their jerseys to the games, I see. There will always be a North Star Nation that wishes we were able to work something out and stay there.”
