Dallas Stars 3, Calgary Flames 2 (OT)

by Mark Stepneski of Andrew's Stars Page

The Dallas Stars wrapped up another successful road trip Friday, rallying to beat the Calgary Flames 3-2 at the Pengrowth Saddledome. Mike Ribeiro's second goal of the game, which came 57 seconds into overtime, gave the Stars the win over the Flames, who had won six games in a row.

Niklas Hagman also scored for the Stars, who ended their road trip 3-1-0. Mike Smith, making his first start in two weeks, made 22 saves including several big ones.

"We just stayed with it," said Stars forward Stu Barnes. "The guys hung in there, Smitty made some huge saves and got us the win."

Said Stars coach Dave Tippett: "We were running on fumes that last period but you have to give guys credit, we hung around the game and earned the win."

The Flames, who were coming off a six-game road trip where they won all six games, are now 7-0-3 in the month of December.

"We had opportunities," said Flames forward Matthew Lombardi. "We came out a little flat [at the start]. We did a lot of good things, but we didn't capitalize."

The Stars were down 2-1 entering the third period but Hagman, who had several good chances in the game, finally got one in the net at 4:01 of the third period. After a nice keep by Trevor Daley, Hagman exchanged the puck with Loui Eriksson behind the net, went to the front of the net, took a pass from Eriksson and scored into the open side of the net.

"I've had my fair share of shots and chances, and a couple of close ones," said Hagman," who scored for the first time in six games. "Eventually I got a real good pass that I just couldn't miss. I can't say I was frustrated because I was getting the chances all the time. I knew it was going to come eventually."

The Stars killed two Calgary power plays over the last half of the third to get the game into overtime. Smith made one of his big stops on the game when he made a pad save on a point blank shot by Daymond Langkow. He got help later in the period from Daley, who made a big block on a shot by Alex Tanguay.

The Stars won it 57 seconds into overtime when Ribeiro won an offensive zone faceoff and then deflected a Sergei Zubov pass past Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff for the game winner.

"It was a good heads up play by Zubov to throw the puck in there just a little bit wide for the tip,'' said Ribeiro, who now has 18 goals to lead the Stars.

After getting rocked along the boards on the first shift of the game by Calgary defenseman Dion Phaneuf, Ribeiro came out for his next shift and scored to give the Stars the early lead. Brenden Morrow backhanded a pass from behind the net to Ribeiro, who held the puck on his backhand as he skated across the top of the crease and then lifted the puck over a sprawling Miikka Kiprusoff 2:42 into the game.

The Flames were able to establish some momentum early in the second thanks to 1:06 of power play left over from the first period and another power play chance early in the period. It paid off when the Flames scored just ten seconds after the second power play expired.

After Robyn Regehr put a shot on net from the left point, Tanguay got the rebound and slipped it into the net at 4:31 of the second.

The Flames took the lead just 17 seconds after they were able to kill off the third power play of the game for the Stars. Lombardi skated into the Dallas zone, moved into the left circle and ripped a shot past Smith at 16:43 of the second period.

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