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Hanzal, Jokinen lift Coyotes to win over Stars

Dec 11, 2008 - 5:28 AM DALLAS (Ticker) -- Martin Hanzal snapped a tie early in the third period with his second goal of the game as the Phoenix Coyotes recorded a 5-3 triumph over the Dallas Stars on Wednesday in a battle of Pacific Division rivals.

After missing his team's previous six games with a shoulder injury, Olli Jokinen netted a pair of power-play goals for Phoenix, which snapped a two-game losing streak.

"It's been a month since the last time I scored a goal," said Jokinen, who also scored twice on November 9 in a 4-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks. "It's always good to score, but the bottom line is, we got two points for a win."

Steven Reinprecht added an empty-netter with 24 seconds left and Ilya Bryzgalov made 29 saves for the Coyotes.

Rookie Fabian Brunnstrom, defenseman Trevor Daley and James Neal scored for Dallas, which fell to 2-2-0 during agitator Sean Avery's absence due to a six-game suspension.

"Bad things happen and breaks go against you, but you have to find ways to overcome," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "We had some unfortunate breaks, we were hanging around the game, but we are finding ways to beat ourselves."

Chris Conner notched a career-high two assists and Marty Turco turned aside 29 shots for the Stars.

With the game tied at 3-3, Turco played the puck behind his own net to Daley. It awkwardly caromed off the blue-liner's stick and trickled out to Hanzal, who tapped it into the vacant net at 5:21 for his eighth goal of the season.

"I got pretty lucky," Hanzal admitted. "(Turco) didn't handle the puck and it hit (Daley's) stick on the backhand. The puck came out to me."

"I didn't see what happened behind the net at all," Turco said. "We did a lot of great little things, which is a great thing for us, but we're going to continue to move forward as a group."

After Daley opened the scoring 4:34 into the first period, Hanzal leveled the contest nearly three minutes later by accepting a feed from rookie Viktor Tikhonov and beating Turco.

The teams traded goals before Jokinen knotted the game at 3-3 with four seconds remaining in the second session.

With Phoenix on the power play, Jokinen unleashed a shot that beat Turco just under the crossbar for his ninth goal of the campaign.

"I had a pretty good chance there," Jokinen said. "Basically Peter (Mueller) had a good shot from over there in the corner. Somehow, the puck went through the traffic and I got a shot at it and put it just under the bar."

"Everybody on that power play did a good job," Phoenix coach Wayne Gretzky said. "To score a goal with (four) seconds left in a period goes a long way for the team."

The late goal also frustrated the Stars.

"It's very frustrating," Dallas defenseman Darryl Sydor said. "To allow a goal with (four) seconds left in the second is frustrating. There are some positives, but this was a huge two points that we left out there.

"We need more urgency and desperation, and I don't know if we are pressing or not, but we need to be better. Every day is a work day, and we have to keep scratching and clawing since we are not that far off."