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Modano, Robidas propel Stars past Canucks

Jan 30, 2008 - 7:29 AM VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Ticker) -- The Dallas Stars' road trip through Western Canada got off to a good start Tuesday night, largely due to Mike Modano and defenseman Stephane Robidas.

Modano and Robidas each scored a goal and set up another to lift the Stars to a 4-3 victory over the Vancouver Canucks.

"We were up, 4-1, and we let them come back a little bit," Robidas said. "It's not usually the way we want to do that. We'll take the win, that's pretty good for us."

Marty Turco made 26 saves and Mike Ribeiro had two assists for Dallas, which remains tied with the San Jose Sharks for the top spot in the Pacific Division with 63 points.

"Excellent," Stars coach Dave Tippett said of his netminder. "We've got three kids 21 or 22 and under on the back there. We need our goaltender to be good. Basically he won the game for us tonight. He was the difference."

"They poured it on tonight," Turco said. "They've got some talented players that work well together. We could do a little bit better job eliminating that. For the most part, first two periods were pretty good, but the third period we let it slip a little bit."

The 37-year-old Modano gave the Stars a 2-1 edge just 90 seconds into the second period. The 18-year veteran blasted a one-timer off a pass from Niklas Hagman past netminder Curtis Sanford.

"Great play by (defenseman Mattias) Norstrom to outlet to Hagman and he just gained a lot of speed," Modano said. "I was able to get a good look at it and able to walk into it. Nik laid it in there pretty good for me, and I was able to get a lot of wood on it."

Modano, the highest scoring American-born player in NHL history, then assisted Robidas' tally just over three minutes later to double Dallas' advantage. On a power play, Modano delivered a pass to the 30-year-old defenseman, who blasted a one-timer between the pads of Sanford.

"Overall, when you know a goalie hasn't played much, you try to put as much traffic and as much pucks at the net as you can because obviously he's not probably in the best game shape," Robidas said. "But it doesn't matter who's in goal, we've just got to keep putting the puck at the net and get some traffic - and that's how we've been scoring goals this year."

Robidas' goal ended the night for Sanford, who surrendered three goals on just 10 shots. He was replaced by rookie Drew MacIntyre.

"It's embarrassing to get pulled and especially to get pulled in front of your own fans," Sanford said. "But (Canucks coach Alain Vigneault) had to do that - and if I was in his position, I would have done the same thing."

MacIntyre, who was the winning goaltender in Monday's American Hockey League All-Star Game, stopped 10 of the 11 shots he faced in his second career NHL appearance.

"It's never the ideal situation to get into a game," MacIntyre said. "But you make the best of it, and it's up to you to be ready. And I felt like I was ready for that game, and whenever I'm not playing, I feel that I'm pretty good at being ready."

Steve Ott added a much-needed shorthanded insurance goal at 7:30 of the third period to give the Stars a 4-1 bulge. It was Ott's first career shorthanded goal.

"I think that's my first," Ott said of his shorthanded tally. "I basically just went to the net. I don't know how it went in. I was kind of hoping just to get a shot away."

Ryan Kesler scored with 8:50 left in the final session and captain Markus Naslund added another with 72 ticks remaining to cut the deficit to 4-3, but the Canucks failed to score again with the goalie pulled.

"Pretty frustrating," Kesler said of the loss. "Going into the third period down, we almost found a way to win. But once again, we've just got to win games."

"The guys are working hard," Vigneault added. "The process is right. Offensively, we're generating much more than we have in the past. It's unfortunate right now and we're not happy with it. Obviously we're a little frustrated with results not going our way, but you control what you can control - and that's effort and preparation."

Both teams hurt their own defensive efforts in the first period.

Vancouver's Matt Cooke accidentally redirected Dallas blue-liner Trevor Daley's attempt past Sanford with 4:16 left to give the Stars a 1-0 lead. It was Daley's second goal of the season and 10th career.

Jeff Halpern repaid the favor with 82 seconds remaining in the period as he deflected Henrik Sedin's shot past Turco to tie the game at 1-1.