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Turco, Stars dominate Sharks

Dec 22, 2006 - 7:28 AM SAN JOSE, California (Ticker) -- Marty Turco and the Dallas Stars certainly love playing against division opponents.

Turco made 20 saves and Jeff Halpern scored the game-winner as the Stars downed the San Jose Sharks, 3-0.

Dallas, which lost, 4-1, to its Pacific-Division rival Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday, improved to 12-2-0 this season against division opponents.

"It's a commitment that everybody made, last night and today," Turco said. "We can also say that there were some spectacular defensive plays, and I think they only become spectacular because we haven't been making them. They are just honest hockey plays that we need to continue to do."

"I have no idea why, I mean, for the first five minutes, I was feeling pretty good," Sharks coach Ron Wilson said. "We had our legs. We were skating. We hadn't shot the puck yet, but we were flying around. As soon as they scored their goal, it was like we lost the will to battle.

The Stars held a 25-minute closed-door meeting after the loss to Anaheim and whatever was said must have worked.

Turco became the Stars' all-time leader with his 28th shutout, surpassing Ed Belfour's mark of 27 set between the 1997-98 and 2001-2002 seasons.

"You know, anytime you reach a milestone or a record of any sort, it is something that will mean a lot when your career is over, and you look back at certain achievements," Turco said. "But really, tonight, the way we played was so good and so honest, that even becoming the franchise leader in that regard feels like it is so insignificant to what we are trying to accomplish here."

Halpern scored the only goal Dallas needed at 6:56 of the first period, when he banged in a rebound past goaltender Vesa Toskala after a shot from the point by defenseman Phillippe Boucher for his fourth tally of the season.

"Everything helps, but it's definitely not where I would have set a goal at the beginning of the year," said Halpern, who netted his first goal in 15 contests sating to November 22, "This team is committed to me, and if scoring goals is what this team needs, then I have to be on that. As long as the team is winning, that's really what we need at this point."

Jussi Jokinen and Brenden Morrow added insurance goals for Dallas, which went 2-1-0 on its three-game West Coast road trip.

"We've had a tough three-game road trip in the division here in California, and we got two out of three wins," Dallas coach Dave Tippett said. "We will take our points and go home."

Toskala fell to 1-3-0 in his last four starts, allowing 12 goals during that stretch.

"We didn't play the type of game that we usually play," said San Jose center Joe Thornton, who had a six-game point streak snapped. "Sometimes, when we chipped pucks in, we didn't retrieve them very well.

"With their skill on the back end, they just grabbed the puck and wheeled it out so you couldn't get a forecheck. We didn't have smart dumps tonight and that leads to no offense."