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Morrow, Stars edge Oilers in OT

Dec 11, 2007 - 6:17 AM By John Tranchina PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

DALLAS (Ticker) - Who says scoring is down this season?

With some complaining that scoring has reached as low a point as it was before the 2004-05 lockout, two usually defensive-minded teams combined for nine goals.

Brenden Morrow got the last one, as the Dallas Stars defeated the Edmonton Oilers, 5-4 in overtime on Monday night.

The game got off to a blistering start and Morrow put the finishing touches on it with a power-play goal with one minute left in the extra session.

Sergei Zubov controlled the puck at the top of the right circle and zipped a pass to Morrow on the doorstep and the Stars captain re-directed it past Edmonton goaltender Mathieu Garon.

"Getting it done in overtime, taking advantage of the power play was huge," Morrow said of his 10th goal of the season. "We tried that play about 30 seconds before and I flubbed it, but he always puts it on the tape and made just a great pass to me for the winner. He is a guy that is not well-known, but we know the value of him to our team."

Zubov finished with a goal and three assists, allowing him to take over the lead among NHL defensemen with 24 assists and 28 points on the season. His 21-year-old defense partner, rookie Matt Niskanen, contributed a goal and two assists.

"Nisky has been great and I feel reborn playing with him," the 37-year-old Zubov said. "He has so much patience and makes plays seem so easy. We needed points and this was a big win for us."

The tone was set early as the Oilers and Stars scored five goals in span of 4:40 in the first period, and continued as Edmonton's Shawn Horcoff tied the game 4-4 with 9:24 remaining in the third period.

"It wasn't as tight a checking as either coach would've liked, but there were some nice plays both ways," Dallas coach Dave Tippett said. "Give the players some credit. Points are valuable home or away, and against a young, hungry team makes them even bigger."

"I was comfortable going into overtime, I was happy with the effort," Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish said of his club, which lost its third straight. "We had a few fundamental mistakes. We battled hard and there were some good positive signs. Our offense created some good opportunities. But when you have a young team you're going to have some fundamental breakdowns. But at the same time I saw a some positives."

For Dallas, Mike Ribeiro scored one goal and one assist, while Antti Miettinen returned from a three-game absence due to a groin injury to post two assists. Mike Modano netted the Stars' other goal.

Dustin Penner led the way for the Oilers with a goal and an assist, as rookie Sam Gagner and Tom Gilbert also tallied.

Gagner scored at 4:26 of the first period, setting off a flurry of activity that saw four more goals scored within a span of 2:22 and left the Stars leading 3-2 midway through the opening frame and the Oilers with a new goalie.

First Ribeiro and Niskanen scored goals just 22 seconds apart to give the Stars a quick 2-1 lead. Ribeiro finished off a pretty passing play in which all five players on the ice touched the puck. Then Niskanen ripped a slap shot from the blue line through a screen over Edmonton starting goalie Dwayne Roloson's shoulder.

"I've had a few like that this year, I think that's my style to score goals, just be by the post, but it was a great pass by Miet," Ribeiro said of his team-leading 13th goal of the season.

The Oilers struck back just 1:10 later as Penner scored his seventh goal on a fluky bounce at 8:26. Penner cut out from behind the Dallas net for a wrap-around attempt, and the puck deflected up and off Stars defenseman Stephane Robidas' head and ricocheted past Turco.

"It hit my stick, hit my visor and went top shelf," Robidas said, shaking his head. "Just bad luck. There's nothing you can do. Nine out of 10, it will hit my stick and go over me or go back behind the net."

But the Stars weren't finished as Modano banged home an easy tap-in from the lip of the crease off a nice cross-ice pass from Jussi Jokinen with Roloson down for his 10th goal of the season at 9:06 to put the Stars back in front 3-2.

With Roloson having surrendered three goals on six shots, MacTavish opted to replace him with Garon, who did a solid job in relief, making 22 saves.

"There were three goals in 10 minutes, I can't say what it was, but that's too many," MacTavish said of why he made the switch. "It was time for a change."

"We battled hard, we created some opportunities for ourselves," said Oiler Fernando Pisani, who had one assist. "We just came up short."