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Stars prevail in goalfest against Avalanche

Feb 12, 2007 - 2:11 AM DALLAS (Ticker) -- The Dallas Stars always seem to come out on top against the Colorado Avalanche, but it never seems to be easy.

Jeff Halpern had a goal and two assists and six other players tallied to lead the Stars to a wild 7-5 victory over the Avalanche.

Dallas improved to 4-0 this season against Colorado and has won the last seven regular-season meetings, although just two have been decided by more than a goal.

"It made for good TV, everything NBC would want on a Sunday afternoon," Stars center Mike Modano said. "A win is a win. We had a good week, we wanted to come out with five points or more in the three games, and we did OK."

This one appeared to be a runaway as the Stars bolted to a 3-0 first-period lead, only to see the Avalanche twice cut three-goal deficits to one.

"That's what makes coaches gray, games like that," Dallas coach Dave Tippett said. "But we'll take the two points. It was a good weekend. We set a goal of four points over the weekend and we accomplished that goal, so we move on.

"We got the lead and did some things that weren't conducive to keeping the lead, it almost came back to bite us. Believe us, we're happy with the win, we'll take the two points any time, but there's things we can learn from both games this weekend."

Neither starting goaltender - Dallas' Marty Turco and Colorado's Peter Budaj - made it out of the second period as the Stars carried a 6-3 lead into the final session.

Colorado stormed back within 6-5 as Milan Hejduk and Brett McLean scored a pair of soft goals in the first 4:19 against Dallas netminder Mike Smith, who had made 32 saves in a 1-0 victory over Anaheim on Saturday night.

"The last four, maybe the last six games, we've been slow-starting and then playing catch-up," Avalanche coach Joel Quenneville said. "It looked like we were going to get a chance to get it to overtime. We played a good third period and got ourselves back into it, but we're certainly not happy with the way we started the game."

The Stars then had to weather three consecutive power plays in the middle of the period before Halpern finally settled it, tucking a shot into the lead corner of the net for a 7-5 lead with 2:28 to play.

"We had those power plays at the end and almost caught up," Colorado's Ian Laperriere said. "We have to find a way to be desperate from the get-go. Maybe we have to pretend we're down 3-0 at the start. I don't know what it is. If I knew how to solve it, I would."

Trevor Daley, Stu Barnes and Jere Lehtinen scored first-period goals for Dallas and Niklas Hagman, Joel Lundqvist and Philippe Boucher tallied in the middle frame.

"We got off to a bad start, is what happened," Avalanche captain Joe Sakic said. "That's a great hockey club over there. We got behind, and it's tough to play catch-up in this game. I've said it before, you have to play 60 minutes. Against good teams on the road like this, you can't get behind."

Sakic got the Avalanche on the board with 41 seconds left in the opening session, and after the Stars restored the cushion to 4-1 on Hagman's goal, Paul Stastny and Wajtek Wolski scored 49 seconds apart to cut the deficit to 4-3 and drive Turco from the game.

"Just trying to stop the bleeding there," Tippett said of yanking Turco. "Smitty had a great day yesterday and we were looking to stop their momentum. (Turco)'s hit a little bump in the road here, but he's been very good for us.

"Our team still feels very confident in both guys. Can they both use a little sharpening up? Sure they can."

Smith, who has three shutouts in nine starts, admitted he was surprised to get into the game.

"It caught me a little bit off-guard," Smith said. "You just got to go out there and make some saves early and get the win."