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Lehtonen, Stars shut out Capitals

Apr 2, 2014 - 4:48 AM Washington, DC (SportsNetwork.com) - Kari Lehtonen had 35 saves in his fourth shutout of the season and the Dallas Stars beat the Washington Capitals 5-0 on Tuesday night.

Dustin Jeffrey had two goals and Tyler Seguin, Ray Whitney and Ryan Garbutt also scored for the Stars, who have won five of their last six games as they make a push for their first postseason appearance in six seasons.

Dallas tied Phoenix for the final wild-card position in the Western Conference after the Coyotes managed only a point against Winnipeg later Tuesday, losing in a shootout.

Lehtonen had 12 saves in the first period, 10 in the second and 13 in the third for his 26th career shutout.

The Stars ran their winning streak against the Capitals to five games.

"It's fun playing when there's a lot on the line and every game is so huge," said Lehtonen. "We just have to keep taking this one game at a time and try to win the next one."

Jaroslav Halak gave up three goals on 23 shots in just under 30 minutes before he was pulled Braden Holtby, who allowed two on 13 shots.

The Capitals have lost four in a row. It was only the second time in their last nine games, though, that they didn't earn a point (4-2-3). They remain just outside playoff position in the Eastern Conference.

"(The Stars) are a really fast team, and they got a lot of pressure on us," said Capitals forward Eric Fehr. "We didn't react well to it. We turned over too many pucks, we didn't make the easy plays -- the 10-foot plays -- we were looking for long passes and they hemmed us in our zone pretty good.

"We talk about it in the room that we want to keep things simple and just make sure that we get it out of the zone, make the tag-up and re-attack but tonight we didn't do it very often."

Seguin deflected a Jamie Benn shot past Halak to give Dallas a 1-0 lead 15:08 into the game and the Stars scored two goals in a 34-second span in the second period.

Alex Chiasson, who had three assists, received a long pass from Alex Goligoski while Washington made a line change, then passed to Whitney on the low left side for the first goal with 9:16 elapsed. Jeffery scooped a rebound up near post and flipped it in for his second goal, at 9:50 of the period.

Jeffrey scored again 9:55 into the third period and Garbutt got a short-handed goal five minutes later when he chased down a long clear from Vernon Fiddler near the left boards and skated in alone on Holtby, beating him with a backhand deke.

Game Notes

The Capitals start a four-game road trip Friday against New Jersey ... The Stars are 2-0 on a five-game road trip that continues against Carolina on Thursday ... Washington's last win against Dallas was Oct. 25, 2008 (6-5 in overtime).