"This was a hard working road game and I liked the way we responded," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "We wanted to play hard and make it tough on them, after they got in late last night."

The Stars did make it tough on the struggling Blackhawks, who have now lost seven straight games, were late getting back to Chicago after a game from Montreal the night before and have several players out with injuries.

But goalie Nikolai Khabibulin made it tough on the Stars at times, keeping Chicago in the game with some sharp saves. But it was a couple of questionable goals allowed by Khabibulin that were the difference in the game.

One came on a Loui Eriksson power play goal that was set up by some great keeps at the blue line by Mike Modano. The other came on a Stu Barnes shot from the point while the Stars were shorthanded and the game was tied 1-1 late in the third period.

"We had a couple of soft ones on Khabibulin,'' said Modano, who assisted on all three Dallas goals in the game, including a Brenden Morrow empty net goal. "Those might be the easiest three assists I've ever scored in my life, but you work for your chances and opportunities and it might be the odd bounce that goes your way. Defense has always been the backbone of this team."

And leading the charge as far as work was Modano, who logged 22:52 in the game and set up all three goals with some hard work.

The Stars also got a solid game out of Marty Turco, who stopped 17 of 18 shots and made a couple of big stops in the third period when the game was tied 1-1. He also had a big moment in the second when he went head-to-head with Blackhawks hot shot rookie Patrick Kane on a penalty shot. Kane's backhand attempt went wide of the net and a sprawling Turco.

"I tried to take what the goalie was giving me," said Kane. "I pulled the puck to my backhand and thought I had him. I just didn't put the shot where I wanted to."

Said Turco: "I'll take that one. I didn't look great on the play, but he tried to do the young, cocky kid thing and put it off the bar and in. Turned out to be a big moment in the game."

The Stars power play, which had been on an 0-23 slump over the past six games, looked better Wednesday night. It scored some goals and created some good chances. Tippett gave some more time to Niklas Hagman, Joel Lundqvist and Loui Eriksson and that trio ended up producing the goal.

The Stars penalty kill gave up and early goal, but killed off back-to-back power plays early in the second, including a brief five-on-three and then produced the game-winning goal. Barnes, who has been a big part of the penalty kill's recent success delivered the big blow.

Barnes played only 10:08 in the game, but 4:18 of it came on the penalty kill.

"He doesn't play a lot of minutes, but he plays very valuable, meaningful minutes,'' Tippett said of Barnes. "Khabibulin was very good for them. We needed one to go in some way and Stu got us that.''

And it summed up the Stars' night: they found a way to win the game against a tired, banged up but desperate Chicago team.

"Working hard, kind of grinding through games as been successful recipe all year,'' he said. ``We've got to continue that way.''

The Stars will have to do that again Thursday when they travel to St. Louis to take on the Blues, another team that can grind out the wins.

• The Stars have now scored seven shorthanded goals this season.
• Stars goalie Marty Turco is now 9-10 on penalty shots in his NHL career.
• The Iowa Stars lost 6-4 in Chicago Wednesday night. Marius Holtet, Konstantin Pushkarev, Chris Conner and Vojtech Polak scored for Iowa. Tobias Stephan got the start in goal, but was pulled eight minutes into the third after giving up six goals on 34 shots.