"Maybe it's a byproduct of a young team. It's guys recognizing a situation," said Stars coach Dave Tippett.

That situation was that the Oilers, already a desperate team based on their location in the standings, were coming off an ugly 3-0 loss to San Jose on Tuesday. A loss where they generated just 13 shots on goal. A loss many of them called embarrassing.

"It's a team that's been sitting here stewing about a bad loss for two days," said Tippett. "It's a team with lots of pride, very well-coached and the fact that 'Hey, we've got to respond.' We had a couple of players respond, but not even close to what should have.

"Maybe that's just some of our young players not recognizing the urgency of the situation. I shouldn't say just young players. I'm classing everybody from Jussi Jokinen to Loui Eriksson to a lot of those players down. You have to recognize that the other team is going to come out and come at you."

And that's what the Oilers did for the first period, dominating play and outshooting and outchancing the Stars. The shot total was 17-5 in favor of the Oilers, but when the first period ended it was only 1-0 in favor of Edmonton. Stars goalie Marty Turco had a lot to do with that. He came up with several nice saves.

"They were coming hard," said Turco. "Sometimes you've just got to weather the storm."

The Stars were able to weather the storm and then push back in the second period and turn the game around with solid special teams play. They were able to get some momentum early in the period with some power play time, including a five-on-three. They didn't score, but the game started to turn or at least even out.

They got a timely penalty kill, which was then followed by Mike Ribeiro setting up Brenden Morrow for a one-timer from the left circle. All of a sudden it is a 1-1 game

Then they got another crack at the five-on-three, applied some great pressure and scored just after it turned into a five-on-four. Ribeiro sets up Stephane Robidas, who scores from the bottom of the left circle. It was Robidas' third power play goal in the last five games.

"We got a lot of good looks at the net," Morrow said. "Didn't get the bounce that we needed, but we created some momentum when we had them pinned in their zone for quite a bit of time, and it was only a matter of time."

That Robidas goal put the Stars up for good and a power play goal by Jussi Jokinen and an empty net tally by Ott rounded out the scoring.

It was a 4-1 win, but it was a lot closer than what the score indicated. The Oilers were putting on some good pressure into the third period. But the Stars ran their winning streak in Edmonton to seven games and kept a frustrated Oilers team frustrated.

"We've come in here and had some crazy games here and we've got some fortunate wins," said Tippett.

The Stars improved to 2-0-0 on the Western Canada trip and will wrap it up Saturday in Calgary against a Flames team that has won four in a row and that is playing very well right now.

• After missing 33 games with an abdominal injury, Stars forward Jere Lehtinen was back in the lineup Friday night. He played a total of 18:05 while playing right wing on a line with Mike Modano and Jussi Jokinen. He picked up an assist, had no shots on goal, three missed shots and logged a total of 5:43 of power play time.
   
• Stephane Robidas has scored three of the Stars' last four power play goals.
   
• Steve Ott has four goals in the last six games.
   
• Mike Ribeiro has four goals over the last two games.
   
• Tobias Stephan made 32 saves as the Iowa Stars beat Grand Rapids 3-0 in Des Moines Friday night. Richard Clune, Janos Vas and Perttu Lindgren were the goal scorers for Iowa.