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Stars Eke out 4-3 Win vs. Canes |
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The Dallas Stars sweated out a nerve-wracking final 20:10 but hung on for a 4-3 win over the Carolina Hurricanes at the American Airlines Center on Saturday night. With the victory, the Stars have won four games in a row to improve to 5-3-0 on the young season and 4-1-0 at home.
Dallas built up a seemingly insurmountable 4-0 lead over the game's first 28 minutes.
Team captain Jamie Benn (fourth goal of the season) finished off a perfect feed off the rush by Alexander Radulov for a 1-0 edge at 7:58 of the first period. Late in the opening stanza, the Stars got the first of two tallies by Tyler Pitlick to take a 2-0 lead to the locker room. Dallas went 200 feet on the play, starting out behind their own net and rushing up the ice. Pitlick crashed the net for a rebound and stashed the puck home.
The lead ballooned to 4-0 before the game was halfway through. Exiting the penalty box as Carolina turned over a puck in the Dallas zone, Tyler Seguin took a head man pass from Mattias Janmark and then wired a wrist shot upstairs for his sixth goal of season. Pitlick further expanded the lead, taking a centering feed at doorstep from Antoine Roussel after Roussel sped in on the forecheck and blasted a defender off the puck behind the net.
Everything seemed under control. That is, until the Stars allowed the Canes to get some life in the closing 10 seconds of the middle stanza. Marc Methot turned over the puck along the defensive side boards to Brock McGinn. Jeff Skinner (fourth goal of the season) took a pass from McGinn and elevated it over Ben Bishop to narrow the gap to 4-1.
The third period was all Carolina. The Stars got outshot by a 14-3 margin and saw their once-commanding lead shrink to 4-3 as Skinner scored again (fifth goal of the season) and then, with 4:36 left in regulation, Jordan Staal (second goal of the season) brought the Hurricanes back within a goal.
That was as close as the Canes got, though. Dallas hung on for the win. Bishop earned the win with 36 saves on 39 shots. Scott Darling took the loss with 22 saves on 26 shots.
The Stars will now embark on a five-game road trip, starting Tuesday with a game at the Pepsi Center in Denver against the Colorado Avalanche. That will start a grueling set of three games in four nights, as the Stars visit the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday and Calgary Flames the next night.
From there, the Stars will have two nights to recover before they play the Vancouver Canucks in British Columbia on Monday, Oct. 30. The road trip concludes on Thursday, Nov. 2, against the Winnipeg Jets.
Dallas Stars Blogger • 
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