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Stempniak leads Blues past Stars

Apr 3, 2007 - 4:36 AM DALLAS (Ticker) -- Trying to move up in the Pacific Division standings, the Dallas Stars had no answer for Lee Stempniak.

Stempniak scored twice as the St. Louis Blues posted a 4-2 victory over the Stars, who failed to gain sole possession of second place in the Pacific Division.

Glen Metropolit and Doug Weight added goals for St. Louis (33-13-3), which reached the .500 mark with three games remaining.

"We're just trying to win hockey games," Blues coach Andy Murray said. "If you take a look at our record, we've won in San Jose, we've won in Anaheim, we've won in New Jersey, we've beaten Buffalo, we've beaten all the top teams in the league. We've got some pretty good players, too."

Dallas (48-25-6) remained tied with San Jose (49-26-4) for second place in the Pacific, four points behind Anaheim (47-20-12).

"It's frustrating because these are valuable points for us," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "Tonight, we didn't have enough guys willing to get into the guts of the ice, get into the guts of the game.

"You're going to have to score hard, ugly goals and to do that, you're going to have to get people to the ugly parts of the ice."

Stempniak tallied in the first period when he gained possession of the puck along the right boards, circled around to the slot before wristing a shot to the stick side of goaltender Marty Turco at the 9:14 mark.

"I just sort of walked up the wall and waited for something to open up," said Stempniak, who has a three-game goal streak. "A seam to the net opened, so I just tried to drive the seam and I was standing there at top of the slot. "I'll take that shot every time I can get it."

After Mike Ribeiro tied the game midway through the second period, Metropolit gave the Blues a 2-1 advantage when he took a pass from rookie D.J. King and fired the puck from the right faceoff circle with 6:16 left in the middle session. It was King's first point in 24 career games.

Just 17 seconds later, Weight redirected a blast by defenseman Christian Backman past Turco to give St. Louis a 3-1 lead.

Dallas captain Brenden Morrow tallied with 15 seconds left in the session on the power play to cut the Stars' deficit to 3-2.

"We knew it was going to be a tough game," Morrow said. "We were coming off an emotional high after Nashville and Detroit. Great teams find ways to win this one. This was a missed opportunity for sure."

But Stempniak added an empty-net tally with 24 seconds remaining for his third multi-goal game of the season.

Curtis Sanford stopped 28 shots, including all nine he faced in the final period for the Blues, who won three of four vs. the Stars in 2006-07.

"We competed really hard tonight and we deserved to win," Sanford said. "We played well defensively, the guys blocked shots, there wasn't a lot of traffic in front of me."

"Dallas is a team that we get up for, because they have a lot of great players," Stempniak added.

Turco made 20 saves before being pulled with 52 seconds left for Dallas.

"It's frustrating," Turco said. "We had a chance at the division."

"We needed a better start," Ribeiro added. "They've been beating us all year. We just need to learn from it."