That was the wrong decision, not only because the Ducks lost McDonald's playmaking and scoring but because Schneider is incurably soft and untrustworthy defensively. Those failings were never better typified than when he let Stephane Robidas get past him along the right-wing boards and set up Stu Barnes for Dallas' second goal.
Robidas is a hard-nosed player -- actually, a broken-nosed player after he took a shot in the face in Game 5 and protected it with a cage Sunday -- but he's a journeyman.
"He had the series of his life," said teammate Mattias Norstrom, who will advance to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2001, when he was with the Kings team that upset Detroit and took Colorado to seven games. "We deserve credit as a group for how we played."
The Ducks' multimillion-dollar defense certainly didn't play like one.
The Stars' defense did, even though injuries took away the creativity and experience of Philippe Boucher and Sergei Zubov and thrust three rookies into intense, learn-on-the-job situations.
"I wouldn't say we outplayed them, but everybody chipped in," said Robidas, who outscored everyone on the Ducks with his goal and six points in the series. "Our identity is to play well as a team, and you've got to give credit to the young guys. And to Marty Turco who made some big saves, and our forwards for coming back."
To the end, the Ducks believed they'd be back in the finals, that they'd find their lost discipline, clean up the other messy parts of their game and take a good run at becoming the first repeat champion since the Detroit Red Wings of 1997-98.
Only afterward, as they realized there's no practice today and no more games this week or this season, did they acknowledge they simply lacked the determination that allowed them to triumph last spring.
"When you're off a little bit here or there, in the big picture it's a lot," said Selanne, who promised to decide in the next month or so whether he will return for another season and not leave the team hanging again.
"We tried hard but today we didn't deserve it.
"It's unbelievably hard to win. A lot of people don't understand what it takes in this league to win. We didn't do things as good as we probably could, and in the big picture it's huge."
On Friday, after helping the Ducks win Game 5, Selanne had said there had to be a happy ending to his return. It was another miscalculation.
"This," he said, "is not a happy ending."
Helene Elliott can be reached at helene.elliott@latimes.com.
To read previous columns by Elliott, go to latimes.com/elliott.
