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DALLAS -- Prior to Saturday night’s game against the Minnesota Wild, the Dallas Stars honored former goaltender Ed Belfour for his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame

Former Dallas teammates Joe Nieuwendyk, Jere Lehtinen, Mike Modano and Brett Hull were part of the ceremony, listing Belfour’s career accomplishments which included a Stanley Cup, two Vezina Trophies and 484 career wins, which ranks third all-time in the NHL.

As Belfour walked onto the ice fans greeted him with a chant of “Eddie! Eddie!”

The Stars presented Belfour with a Breitling watch and a plaque that will be displayed in the Stars’ Walk of Legends.

During the ceremony, Belfour was asked about his favorite memory of his stay in Dallas.

“Winning the Stanley Cup in 1999,” Belfour said. “It was a dream come true.”

Prior to the ceremony, Belfour was asked about those “Eddie! Eddie!” chants.

“Oh for sure [I could hear them],” Belfour said. “Yeah, that’s definitely one of those adrenaline builders. It always makes you want to play that much better.”

Belfour, who is building a house north of Dallas, said he has been taking it easy and could get back into hockey someday.

“Just pretty much taking it easy, enjoying my time -- a little bit of fishing, camping, outdoor stuff and hunting, enjoying my family and friends,” he said. “Maybe someday (I’ll get get back into hockey), been building a house the last year and a half has kept me real busy. Now that that’s done, maybe I can look at something like that.”

Belfour was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in November along with Nieuwendyk, Doug Gilmour and Mark Howe.

“That was awesome. It was a great weekend, first class, treated us right from the time we got there,” Belfour said. “My mom and dad and all my friends were there. It was just overall a great weekend and something I’ll never forget.”

Prior to Saturday night’s game against Minnesota at American Airlines Center, the Dallas Stars will recognize former goaltender Ed Belfour for his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Saturday’s ceremony starts at 7 p.m. sharp and fans are encouraged to get there early. Four of Belfour's former Dallas teammates - Joe Nieuwendyk, Mike Modano, Brett Hull and Jere Lehtinen - will participate in the ceremony. Stars broadcasters Ralph Strangis and Daryl Reaugh will be the emcees.

Belfour, who helped lead the Stars to the 1999 Stanley Cup, was inducted into the Hall along with Nieuwendyk, Doug Gilmour and Mark Howe in November.

Ed Belfour, Joe Nieuwendyk, Doug Gilmour and Mark Howe will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame tonight in Toronto. You can watch the induction ceremony on the NHL Network. The broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. (CST).

Voting in underway for the NHL All-Star Game. Jamie Benn, Loui Eriksson, Kari Lehtonen, Mike Ribeiro and Sheldon Souray are the Dallas Stars are on the ballot. There's a write-in option as well. Cast your vote at vote.nhl.com.

ESPN.com's Pierre LeBrun takes a look at the career of Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk, who will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame Monday.

Here's an excerpt from LeBrun's story:

On Dec. 19, 1995, Nieuwendyk was shipped to Dallas in a deal that sent Corey Millen and a prospect namedJarome Iginla to Calgary.

"We had some good draft picks coming down the line, like Jarome Iginla," former Stars GM Bob Gainey recently told ESPN.com about the Nieuwendyk acquisition. "There was a decision made that we would try and speed up that program, and see if we could enhance our team as we tried to establish ourselves in that new hockey community in Dallas."

The transition wasn't easy at first for Nieuwendyk.

"I really got in on the ground floor in Dallas," he said. "Hockey wasn't popular in those early years. We didn't have a very good team, and that first half-year I was there, I was thinking, 'Oh my God.' I had come from Calgary, where winning was everything. You go to Dallas where people were still learning what offsides were. It was a challenge and a very difficult transition."

But Gainey would bring in more big names, and the Stars became an NHL powerhouse in the late 1990s. They went on to beat the Buffalo Sabres in the 1999 Stanley Cup finals to capture their first and only Cup. Nieuwendyk was sensational that spring, posting 11 goals and 21 playoff points en route to the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. He was as motivated as ever.

"To ultimately win down there was an incredible experience because we had stolen some of the Dallas Cowboys' thunder. People fell in love with a bunch of blue-collar guys who were playing hard," Nieuwendyk said. "For me, it went back to the year before in the playoffs in 1998 with [Bryan] Marchment taking me into the boards. I miss those whole playoffs [he played only one game after the hit blew out his right ACL]. So the next year, it just really drove me.

"I think all the lessons I learned over my career, seeing how much it meant to our veteran guys in Calgary and I hadn't had a sniff at it over 10 years, you realized it wasn't easy. I was really focused for that playoff run."

The rest of the story is here.

ESPN.com's Scott Burnside takes a look at the career of former Dallas Stars goaltender Ed Belfour, who will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame Monday.

Here's an excerpt of Burnside's story.

"Eddie was a unique teammate. Socially, he probably wasn't real tight with anybody, but we all admired the seriousness he took at this position. He prepared himself. He was the first guy there and the last guy to leave," Joe Nieuwendyk, his former teammate in Dallas and Toronto, told ESPN.com. "There were a lot of things that went with that. Eddie needed his certain type of groceries; he needed a skate sharpener and all that kind of stuff. But we accepted it because we knew the type of goalie that we had. We knew the competitor he was. He was maybe the best biggest-game goaltender I ever played with.

"You think of the goalies he beat in '99 when we won the Cup [with Dallas]. He beat Grant Fuhr, Patrick Roy and Dominik Hasek in the last three rounds. That's unreal. And he was better than all those guys."

Ask those who played alongside or observed Belfour on the long arc of his career, a career that yielded 484 NHL victories and 88 playoff wins, and the bookend themes are consistent: focus and preparation.

"The bigger the game, the narrower the focus," current St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock recently told ESPN.com. "The bigger the stage the better he played all the time."

The complete story is here.

A couple of notes for your Friday morning:

*The Dallas Stars Icebreaker is scheduled for Saturday September 10 at Galleria Dallas. It will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and will feature players signing autographs. More details will be available from the Stars as the event draws closer.

*The Stars are expected to honor Joe Nieuwendyk and Ed Belfour on separate nights this season. As you know, both Nieuwendyk and Belfour will be formally inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in November. The Stars are still in the planning stages of the Nieuwendyk and Belfour events, but expect them to be held in the fall.

FRISCO, Texas -- Joe Nieuwendyk and Ed Belfour won a Stanley Cup together with the Dallas Stars and now they’ll head into the Hockey Hall of Fame together.

Nieuwendyk and Belfour were two of four players elected to the Hall on Tuesday. Doug Gilmour and Mark Howe were the others.

Nieuwendyk, who was in his second year of eligibility, won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP when the Stars won the Cup.

“I’m thrilled. I really am,” Nieuwendyk said at the Stars practice facility in Frisco. “It’s been a busy time with the draft and the work we have to do to get ready for free agency and this is a welcomed diversion, no question. I know how important it is in the history of the game and the select class of players that have gone into the Hall. I am thrilled to be a part of it.”

Nieuwendyk also won Stanley Cups with Calgary (1989) and New Jersey (2003). He won the Calder Trophy in 1988 as the NHL’s top rookie. He scored 564 goals in 1,257 NHL games.

“When you go through the course of your career you don’t think that you’re playing because you want to be a Hall of Famer. You play because you love the game and you love to compete and that’s what I tried to do over the course of my career,” he said. “I was fortunate to have success with a group of guys. To me that is what it is all about – the relationships and the teams that you have throughout your career. I was very fortunate in that regard.”

Belfour, who was in goal for the Stars when they won the Stanley Cup in 1999, made it into the Hall the first year he was eligible.

“It’s a great honor,” said Belfour. “I want to thank all my teammates that I played with over the years. Obviously, without them I couldn’t have had success. I want to thank all the great coaches I had over the years, my mom and dad, all my friends that backed me and that made me a better player and a better person on and off the ice. It kind of surprised me. There are a lot of mixed emotions because you always have it in your heart that you want to continue to play, but there is a point when it has to come to an end.”

Belfour was among the best goaltenders of his time, and his career numbers stack up among the best of all-time.

He’s third all-time in wins with 484, trailing only Martin Brodeur and Patrick Roy. He’s tied for fourth all-time in games played with 963. He had 76 career shutouts, which is tied for ninth in NHL history. He won the Vezina Trophy twice, the Jennings Trophy four times and he won a Calder Trophy as well.

“I played with a lot of good goaltenders over my career and there was something ultra-unique about Eddie,” said Nieuwendyk. “I wouldn’t say he was socially with us all the time, but we knew he was preparing himself to play nets on any given night. He took his job very seriously. He competed at a high level and we knew Eddie was going to be there for us. If I had to go into a one game showdown, Eddie Belfour is the goalie that I would want in the net.”

Three players from that 1999 team are now in the Hall of Fame. Brett Hull is the other. Mike Modano is probably not far behind. Nieuwendyk thinks Sergei Zubov and Jere Lehtinen will get consideration as well.

“It’s a reminder of the special time that we shared here from the mid-to-late 1990’s and the players we were associated with. It really was a terrific time for all of us and for the fans of Dallas. You appreciate those things when you go through your career and you don’t have those opportunities very often. We all came together for a common goal and it was very rewarding.”

Ed Belfour is going into the Hockey Hall of Fame. It’s a not a matter of if, only when. The former Dallas Stars netminder is in first year of eligibility for the HHOF and we’ll find out Tuesday if he gets in the first time around.

He should. The record speaks for itself. He was one of the best goalies of his time, along with Martin Brodeur and Patrick Roy.

He won the Vezina Trophy twice, the Jennings Trophy four times. He won the Calder Trophy. He won a Stanley Cup.

When you add up the career numbers, he stacks up impressively. He’s third all-time in wins with 484, trailing only Brodeur and Roy. He’s tied for fourth all-time in games played with 963. He had 76 career shutouts, which is tied for ninth in NHL history.

There are the 88 playoff victories, tied for fifth in NHL history. He’s third all-time in playoff games played with 161. His 14 career playoff shutouts are tied for fifth. That 2.17 playoff goals against average and .920 save percentage aren’t too shabby either.

Here’s a breakdown of the accomplishments.

*Stanley Cup (Dallas, 1999)

*Vezina Trophy – Best Goaltender (1991, 1993)

*Calder Trophy – Rookie of the Year (1991)

*Jennings Trophy –Fewest goals allowed (1991, 1993, 1995, 1999)

*NHL First All-Star Team (1991, 1993)

*NHL Second All-Star Team (1995)

*Roger Crozier Saving Grace Award – Best Save Percentage (2000)

Belfour was also selected to play in the NHL All-Star Game six times. He was a member of Canada’s gold-medal team at the 2002 Olympics.

The Eagle’s record speaks for itself: the numbers, the accomplishments, and the length of the career. It all adds up to a tremendous career, a Hall of Fame career.