"Anytime you lose a game you want to come back and have a strong start," said Stars forward Stu Barnes, who assisted on both Dallas goals in Friday's 2-0 win. "We got the good start and kept going from there."

Jeff Halpern's tip of a Sergei Zubov shot from the point put the Stars up 1-0 just 24 seconds into the game. The Stars are a much better team playing with the lead and they showed it.

"Our guys were commenting on how good they felt. They wanted to get off to a good start," Tippett said. "Halpern got us on the board early and I thought we were off and running."

The Stars came out and put pressure on the Canucks early with a strong forecheck, frustrating the Canucks and forcing them into mistakes.

"The forecheck is our bread and butter and it got us a goal early," said Stars captain Brenden Morrow. "We fed off it and kept that momentum for a lot of the game."

"If you can get in there and create some turnovers, you can get some chances," said Tippett. "That was evident from the first shift of our game."

The Stars used their ability to roll four lines as an advantage. It helped in what Tippett called dictating the pace of the game.

"Our guys were talking about that yesterday," Tippett said. "Coming out and dictating the pace of the game."

The Stars did that for most of the game. After Joel Lundqvist took a pass from Mike Modano and scored 45 seconds into the second period the Stars seemed to be in complete command. Tippett shortened the bench in the third period as the Stars protected the lead and the Canucks tried to get some offense generated.

The Stars' checking line of Halpern, Lundqvist and Stu Barnes not only produced a pair of goals, but did a nice job on the Canucks' top line that featured the Sedin twins and Markus Naslund most of the night.

When the Canucks were able to get anything going, Stars goalie Marty Turco was there to shut the door. The Canucks had 35 shots, but not a lot of great chances. The players in front of Turco kept those to a minimum.

"It was a big team game," Turco said. "Letting me see the shots, picking up rebounds, picking up guys around the net was a big factor for me to get the job done."

But Turco was rock solid in posting his first NHL playoff shutout. He gave up few second chances and seemed in control most of the night. He was particularly sharp in the third period when Vancouver had 17 shots on goal.

"He was very solid," said Stars coach Dave Tippett. "They didn't have a lot of great chances or outnumbered rushes, but there was a lot of poking and prodding around the net and he was very strong there."

So was the Stars the penalty kill, which was a perfect 6-6 on the night. It did get some help from the Canucks, who three times took themselves off the power play by taking penalties to negate their manpower advantage.

In the end it was a rock solid performance across the board for the Stars and a strong bounce back effort from the disappointing loss in Game 1. They come back to Dallas tied 1-1 and with home ice advantage in what is a best-of-five series now.

"You get a little frustrated about [the loss] and then you forget about it," said Stars defenseman Philippe Boucher. "You remember the positives that happened. That's what we did. Being up 2-0 would have been great, but a split is what you are looking for going on the road."

"For me it was two mistakes at the beginning of the first and second period from two different forwards that led to that led to tap-in goals for them," said Canucks coach Alain Vigneault. "It wasn't the fact that our guys were fatigued. It was the fact that we didn't bring our best game to the table."

The Stars limited the Canucks' chances five-on-five and that meant the power play chances were crucial. Mistakes hurt there as well.

The Canucks had six power plays in the game, but some of them didn't last long. Three times the Canucks were taken off the power play when they ended up taking a penalty while they had the man advantage.

"You usually don't get a lot of chances against [Dallas] and not only was our power play not clicking, but on our power play we were taking a penalty 15 or 20 seconds later," said Vigneault. "So that made it challenging for us."

The Canucks thought those shortened power play opportunities were missed chances to get back into the game.

"Could that change the outcome of the game? Who knows? I don't know," said Vancouver forward Brendan Morrison. "Those are good opportune times to get back in the game or wear them down and get them running around a bit."