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Morrow, Stars tame Wild

Dec 27, 2007 - 5:01 AM DALLAS (Ticker) -- The Dallas Stars continue to dominate the team that eventually replaced them in Minnesota.

Brenden Morrow had two goals and an assist to lead the Stars to an 8-3 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday.

The eight goals was a season high for Dallas, which handed Minnesota its seventh straight road loss in the Lone Star State.

"You have to realize it (scoring eight goals) won't happen every night, it's nice when everyone has a share," said Mike Ribeiro, who had a goal and two assists.

"That's our game plan every night," Morrow said. "We were able to focus better. There's a lot of distractions this time of year, we were able to focus better."

With the Stars nursing a 4-3 lead midway through the third period, Morrow scored his 150th goal of his career and Mike Modano tallied just 14 seconds later to give the Stars a three-goal bulge.

"Brenden is setting the tone and we've been controlling the puck well in the offensive zone," Ribeiro said.

Morrow added his second goal of the game and 15th of the season with 4:32 remaining, and Loui Eriksson capped the scoring 49 seconds later.

"Pretty much for half the game we were in it," Minnesota's Eric Belanger said. "Then we gave up two quick goals and everything was going their way."

Pavol Demitra had two goals - the second of which came at 8:13 of the second period to bring the Wild within 4-3.

Demitra's slap shot from the top of the left faceoff circle grazed goaltender Marty Turco's glove, bounced off the left post and into the net.

But that's as close as the Wild got.

The game began with a flurry of goals as the teams combined for five tallies in the first 10 minutes of the game, culminated by a shorthanded goal by Dallas' Jeff Halpern which gave the Stars a 3-2 lead at 9:33 of the first period.

"Everybody's coming off a couple days of eating and drinking, it's tough to get it going," Modano said.

Halpern scored from near the top of the crease after teammate Steve Ott lost control of the puck on a breakaway attempt.

Niklas Hagman opened the scoring just 93 seconds into the game.

Hagman fired a shot from the bottom of the right faceoff circle and over the right shoulder of Harding.

"We give them chances, we're not sharp and we're playing against good players," Minnesota coach Jacques Lemaire said. "We were playing a good team that knows what they're doing and they played a great game."

Aaron Voros leveled the game after he beat Marty Turco just inside the right post at 4:50 of the first period.

Ribeiro regained the lead for Dallas with a goal on a breakaway with 6:20 remaining in the first session. It was Ribeiro's 20th goal of the season, tying his career high set in the 2003-04 season.

Demitra scored his first goal of the game 37 seconds later to tie the game at 2-2.