• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Turco stops 25 shots as Stars blank Sharks

Dec 5, 2006 - 4:53 AM DALLAS (Ticker) -- Marty Turco's dominant performance in goal gave the San Jose Sharks a taste of their own medicine.

Turco made 25 saves for his second shutout of the season and Mike Modano scored his team-leading 10th goal to lead the Dallas Stars to a 1-0 victory over the Sharks.

Dallas avenged a 2-0 loss to San Jose on October 17 and ended the Sharks' five-game winning streak behind the stellar play of Turco, who recorded his 150th career victory and 26th shutout, one shy of Ed Belfour's franchise record.

"This win was a big confidence booster for all of us," Turco said. "We had a depleted corps of guys. We had a lot of young guys step up and do a great job."

"It was a significant win," Dallas coach Dave Tippett said. "There's a lot of significance to it. A team we're chasing, with all our injuries. We asked a lot of different people to step up, and they did for us, but it's got to continue."

After stopping six shots in the first period and seven in the second, Turco preserved the shutout by making some sprawling saves in the third.

The 31-year-old goaltender stopped Patrick Marleau's shot on the doorstep with his stick while lying on the ice with 12:20 remaining. He also denied Marleau's one-timer from the right faceoff circle with a chest save two minutes later.

"I think we had pretty good pressure all game," Marleau said. "Some missed opportunities, pucks bouncing, but I think we had enough opportunities to win the game tonight."

With less than seven minutes to play, reigning Maurice Richard Trophy winner Jonathan Cheechoo fired a wrister from the slot after Joe Thornton's setup pass from behind the net. However, Turco went down and made a save with his left pad.

"He made a nice save," Cheechoo said. "I don't even think he saw it. He just slid across with two pads and it hit him. I didn't get it up high enough. He made a nice save to get over there."

San Jose kept firing away down the stretch, but Turco held firm. He made a solid glove save on Joe Pavelski's backhander from the slot with 1:46 to go and held the Sharks off on their 6-on-4 advantage in the final 48 seconds.

"They're a great team with a lot of great offensive players," Turco said. "We made a point of checking them well. It's really hard to keep them down."

"It was a grinding win and everybody played really well to make sure we were on top at the end," Stars center Stu Barnes said. "We did the things we had to do to win. Our young guys played well. It was a good effort."

Dallas went in front at 7:46 of the opening period on a power play when Modano took defenseman Philippe Boucher's cross-ice feed and fired a one-timer from the right faceoff circle that beat netminder Evgeni Nabokov to the glove side.

Ending an eight-game goal-scoring drought, the 36-year-old Modano scored his 495th career tally, leaving him seven shy of Joey Mullen's record for most goals by a U.S.-born player.

However, Modano left in the second period with a lower body injury and did not return.

"We knew our power play was going to have to be big for us and we only got two of them, but they were both good and Modano scored the goal," Tippett said. "He (has) been a little snakebit. ... He was really playing well until he came up a bit lame."

Nabokov made just 12 saves and fell to 7-6-0 for the Sharks, who lost for the second time in nine contests.

"We just didn't finish our scoring chances," Sharks coach Ron Wilson said. "Our power play wasn't very good tonight. ... Marty Turco had a great night. He stopped five or six huge ones. We just couldn't finish and a lot of it had to do with him. He had a great night."

"The guys did a good job of getting pucks at the net," San Jose right wing Mike Grier said. "Marty made some good saves. He was great tonight. Today, he was pretty much on his game, so he made it tough on us."