• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Khabibulin holds off Stars

Dec 27, 2006 - 5:19 AM CHICAGO (Ticker) -- "The Bulin Wall" stood up to the Dallas Stars.

Nikolai Khabibulin stopped 11 shots in the third period as the Chicago Blackhawks held on for a 2-1 victory over the Stars.

It appeared Dallas would tie the game when Loui Eriksson split two defensemen and fired a shot from in front as he was hooked from behind by Jassen Cullimore with 4:55 left. But Khabibulin made the save while Cullimore was penalized for hooking.

Khabibulin then stoned Dallas on the power-play, marking the 10th straight time the Stars have failed to score with the man advantage.

"I thought we came on in the third period and we had our chances, but give credit to Khabibulin," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "He made big stops when he had to."

Khabibulin made a point-blank save on Niklas Hagman midway through the third period.

"In the third period, they started skating more and we got stuck in our end," Khabibulin said. "But I'm in a pretty good groove. I certainly feel quicker than I did last year."

Dallas has scored just one goal in 13 of its 37 games this season.

Both of Chicago's goals came on the power play. They had been 0-for-18 with the man advantage before Denis Arkhipov scored on a 5-on-3 power play with 1:46 left in the first period. Marty Turco made a glove save on a shot by Adrian Aucoin, but then dropped the puck. Arkhipov pounced on the rebound and scored from the right edge of the crease.

Stu Barnes scored Dallas' lone goal 2:05 into the second period, skating unchecked from the left corner and beating Khabibulin between the pads from the crease.

"Loui Eriksson did a great job of going to the net and forcing their other defenseman away from me," Barnes said. "I had a lane open up so I just went to the net and fortunately my shot just snuck through."

Martin Lapointe snapped the tie, deflecting a shot by Arkhipov past Turco with 5:15 left in the second period. "Obviously, our power-play has struggled of late," Lapointe said. "Tonight our plan was to keep it simple and put pucks on net and have guys crash the net. You can't always have pretty goals. Sometimes it's a lucky goal that does it."

The Blackhawks have won two straight over Dallas following a 15-game winless streak against the Stars (0-13-2), dating to 2002.

Chicago snapped the streak in Denis Savard's debut as coach, a 2-1 victory over Dallas on November 29.

"They always make it tough on us," Savard said. "Tonight we matched up against them well but the game still could have gone either way. We just found a way tonight to get it done."

The Blackhawks are 9-3-3 under Savard, who replaced Trent Yawney as coach in late November.