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Weight helps Blues send Stars to fourth consecutive loss

Mar 9, 2007 - 7:02 AM ST. LOUIS (Ticker) -- With his team facing a second straight season without a playoff berth, Doug Weight decided to help the St. Louis Blues play the role of spoiler.

Weight scored twice and defenseman Eric Brewer added a goal and an assist as the Blues posted a 5-3 victory over the slumping Dallas Stars.

Jay McClement collected three assists and Lee Stempniak and Brad Boyes netted a tally and set up another for the Blues (38-23-5), who have won five of their last six at home but are 13 points out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

"I was finding open people all night," McClement said. "There is no way I could have asked for better opportunities than what these guys provided me tonight."

The fourth straight loss by Dallas (38-23-5) kept it even with Calgary (36-22-9) and Minnesota (37-24-7) for sixth in the West.

After Brewer opened the scoring just 66 seconds into the first period, Weight tallied on the power play at 2:07 of the middle session to give the Blues a 2-0 advantage.

Mike Modano scored his 498th career goal less than four minutes later to halve the deficit, but Stempniak tallied with just 1:53 remaining in the period to restore St. Louis' two-goal bulge.

"It was an unbelievable pass, all I had to do was walk in on net," Stempniak said. "I do not think the goalie was expecting (McClement) to make the pass. It was an unbelievable play by Jay, and I had the easy part."

Boyes scored with 3:38 left in the third and Weight capped his second two-goal performance of the season with an empty-netter exactly two minutes later for the Blues, who improved to 3-1-1 in their last five.

"It was lucky for me that the puck ended up where it did," Boyes said of his 15th goal of the season and second with the Blues. "And, in any case, it was nice to go two goals ahead that late in the game."

Boyes also has two assists in four games with St. Louis since being acquired from Boston at last week's trade deadline.

The Blues, who entered 18th in the league in penalty-killing, successfully extinguished 5-on-3 situations early in the first period and midway through the third.

"We would say we should probably just stay out of the penalty box," Brewer said. "We do not need (defensemen Sergei) Zubov and (Philippe) Boucher bombing away at us all night. We will take our chances with them not out there. The guys just stepped up and gave (goaltender Curtis Sanford) good looks at the puck and made some key blocks."

Jere Lehtinen and Boucher netted third-period goals for Dallas, which last dropped four in a row from March 27-April 2, 2004.

"We are finding out a lot about our team and who will compete at a level we need to compete at," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "We have some players who are competing very hard, but some are not at the level at which we need them. Like I said, we are finding out a lot about our team right now."

Before the game, St. Louis coach Andy Murray told his team to stay competitive despite being a longshot to make the playoffs.

"Andy challenged the guys, like he does on a daily basis," Weight said. "That was a big bounce-back game for us. We didn't deserve to win against Calgary (on Tuesday). We had a bad taste in our mouth, and this is a big win for us against a good hockey club."

The Blues squandered a two-goal advantage and only managed 19 shots in the 4-2 loss to the Flames.