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DALLAS (Ticker) -- Brett Hull scored his second straight series-winning goal, beating Tommy Salo with a wrist shot with 5:02 remaining, as the Dallas Stars posted a 3-2 victory that again eliminated the Edmonton Oilers from the playoffs. Hull, whose triple-overtime goal won Game Six of last year's Stanley Cup Finals, took a drop pass from Joe Nieuwendyk at the top of the right faceoff circle and leaned into a trademark wrister that found room under Salo's right arm. "Those are the goals I live for, that's what I'm supposed to do," Hull said. "Joe took the puck over the blue line and I yelled that there's three of us. I was just going to the net for a rebound, but he laid a nice pass back onto my stick and Salo leaned, giving me the far side." Hull's third goal of the series broke a 2-2 tie and propelled the Stars into the Western Conference semifinals for the third straight year. They needed only five games to dispose of the Oilers for the third consecutive season, knocking them out in the opening round for the second year in a row. "It seems like I've been playing the Oilers all my life," Nieuwendyk said. "They're a good, young team that pushed us once again. It was good to get out of here in five games." Edmonton played most of the game without captain Doug Weight, who was bothered by back spasms. The Oilers erased a pair of one-goal deficits before suffering their 10th straight loss at Reunion Arena. "I've regretted very few things in my career, but one thing I do regret is how we played the first two games here in Dallas," Weight said. "We played hard, but we didn't have the energy to support Tommy and beat a team like Dallas. I'm not saying that we would have won the series had we played differently in the first two games. But it would've been a different series." Edmonton pulled Salo for an extra attacker and nearly tied it in the final minute. Goaltender Ed Belfour stopped Janne Niinimaa's drive from inside the blue line and the puck hopped over the stick of Ryan Smyth, who would have had an easy tap-in for the equalizer. The defending Stanley Cup champions had a 2-1 lead after the second period, but Edmonton tied it 67 seconds into the third. Jim Dowd intercepted defenseman Richard Matvichuk's clearing attempt behind the net and threw the puck in front. It caromed off defenseman Derian Hatcher's skate and got between Belfour's pads for Dowd's second goal of the series. "It's disconcerting when something like that happens," Stars right wing Jamie Langenbrunner said. "But we have a lot of veterans who've been down that road before and know how to handle something like that." Langenbrunner's power-play goal snapped a scoreless tie 5:35 into the second period. Just four seconds after a two-man advantage expired, he took a touch pass from Nieuwendyk and banged the puck past Salo for his first playoff goal. The Oilers tied it just over seven minutes later on Todd Marchant's first goal of the series. Belfour stopped a backhander from the right circle, but Marchant drove to the net and poked his own rebound past the goalie. "It's not the greatest feeling in the world to lose to the same team three years in a row," Marchant said. "They played their system four out of five games and did so for 60 minutes in those games. Call it what you want, but it's definitely a game of inches. We did not have that inch on our side." Hatcher broke the tie just 87 seconds later. With Weight getting treatment in the locker room, Mike Modano had extra room to maneuver as he skated into the Edmonton zone. He passed to Hatcher, who put a wrister from the top of the right circle through defenseman Tom Poti's legs and between Salo's pads. Belfour made 24 saves to improve to 40-7-6 lifetime against the Oilers, including 16-3 in the playoffs. Salo stopped 24 shots but is 1-15-1 in his career against Dallas, including a 1-8 postseason mark. "We were really under siege at times, especially in the third period. But thank God for a guy like Brett Hull," Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said. "He really picked up his play in this series. Eddie Belfour made big saves for us in the third period, but most importantly, he stepped up when we needed him most. Next year, somebody else can play this team."
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