Stars rally past Coyotes 5-3

Sunday, October 30, 2005

The Dallas Stars found themselves down early in a game once again, but on this night they had an answer. The Stars scored four unanswered goals to erase a 3-1 deficit and beat the Phoenix Coyotes 5-3 at the Glendale Arena Saturday night.

Niko Kapanen's goal, his first of the season, with 9:51 left in the game proved to be the game-winner for the Stars, who also got goals from Stu Barnes, Mike Modano, Sergei Zubov and Jere Lehtinen.

Johan Hedberg made 20 saves on the night to earn his second win of the season for Dallas, which lost forward Bill Guerin midway through the first period due to back spasms.

"It was a weird game," Hedberg told the Associated Press. "There were a lot of shots where I didn't have a clue where they were. But we stayed in the game and fought, and it paid off for us."

The loss snapped a two-game losing streak for the Stars, who won for just the second time in their last six games.

The Coyotes built a 2-0 lead in the first ten minutes of the game, putting the Stars in a familiar 2-0 hole. The Coyotes scored the first goal of the game at 3:22 when Geoff Sanderson set up Shane Doan, who beat Stars goalie Johan Hedberg with a shot to the upper corner of the net from the right faceoff circle.

The Coyotes made it 2-0 with a power play goal at the 9:47 mark. After Sanderson put a shot on net from the slot, the puck was behind Hedberg's pads and Mike Ricci poked it into the net.

The Stars did finally get on the board with less than a minute to go in the first. After taking a pass from Philippe Boucher, Stu Barnes made a nice move in the  slot to beat Coyotes defenseman Derek Morris and then fired the puck past Curtis Joseph at the 19:07 mark to cut the Phoenix lead to 2-1.

The Coyotes got their two-goal lead back early in the second period when Fredrik Sjostrom picked up a pick, skated along the boards to the point and beat a screened Hedberg with a wrist shot at the 2:46 mark.

The Stars finally got their first power play of the game at 8:38 of the second period and it turned into a two-man advantage for 44 seconds. The Stars couldn't score five-on-three, but they cashed in on the five-on-four end when Mike Modano beat Joseph with a strong backhand shot from the left faceoff circle at 11:26 of the second to make it a 3-2 game.

Shortly after the Stars effectively killed off a Phoenix power play, Jussi Jokinen came close to tying the game but his wrist shot from close range hit the post.

Zubov got the tying goal 58 seconds into third period when he knocked the puck down at the red line with his hand, skated into the Phoenix zone, made a nice move to get the puck to his forehand and beat Joseph with a wrist shot from distance.

Kapanen's game winner came after he picked off a Mike Leclerc pass in the Phoenix zone and beat Joseph with a wrist shot at the 10:09 mark of the third.

Lehtinen wrapped up the scoring with empty net goal with 35 seconds left.

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