At the end of the season former Detroit Red Wings assistant general manager Jim Nill left the team to become the general manager of the Dallas Stars. Nill's first big task as GM is to hire a head coach, and today the Stars announced that they hired Lindy Ruff.

It is going to be strange seeing Ruff, who had been the Buffalo Sabres coach since 1997, behind a different bench. Ironically, the last time he coached in a Stanley Cup final it was against the Dallas Stars, who beat the Sabres on a disputed goal by Brett Hull.

• At the time of the 1999 final the NHL had a near zero tolerance for players in the goal crease and many goals during the season were waved off. I believe that after this final the NHL went away from waving off goals if a player's skates were in the goal crease and focused on goalie interference.

Ruff has been a good coach for a long time, so I will give Jim Nill and A for his first major move as GM.