Flames 7 Stars 4
CALGARY — David Moss had two goals and an assist to lead the Calgary Flames to a 7-4 victory over Dallas on Friday night, snapping the Stars franchise-record road win streak at eight games.
Two nights after Miikka Kiprusoff was booed by the home fans for giving up six goals on 24 shots, the Flames scored seven goals on 19 shots against shaky Stars goaltender Andrew Raycroft.
It was a battle of the backups as Henrik Karlsson got the start ahead of the struggling Kiprusoff. Although not stellar in making just 17 saves, Karlsson was the better of the two in improving to 4-3-4.
Notably, it was the first win on home ice for the 27-year-old Swede playing his first NHL season. It was also only the sixth time since the 2004-05 lockout that a Flames goaltender other than Kiprusoff had won on home ice.
Jarome Iginla, Olli Jokinen, Alex Tanguay and Brendan Morrison each had a goal and an assist for Calgary (21-21-6). Mikael Backlund had the other.
Iginla reached the 20-goal plateau for the 12th straight time and 13th time in 14 seasons.
The Flames remain in 14th place in the Western Conference but a 7-3-3 run has them within six points of Chicago and Colorado, who are tied for seventh and hold down the final two playoff spots.
Brenden Morrow, Brad Richards, Nicklas Grossman and James Neal with his 20th goal scored for Dallas (29-14-5). Mike Ribeiro had three assists to extend his points streak to 11 games, the longest active streak in the NHL.
The Pacific Division-leading Stars lost for the first time in 2011 after posting a 7-0-1 record in January.
The next opponent for both teams is Vancouver. The Flames play the Northwest Division-leading Canucks on Saturday night while the Stars visit Rogers Arena on Monday night.
Trailing 5-3, Dallas drew to within a goal 31 seconds into the third period when Neal scored his 20th goal by converting the rebound of Jamie Langenbrunner’s shot off the post.
However, Iginla restored Calgary’s two-goal lead at 4:20.
Moss recorded his second of the game at 12:12 as Calgary took only nine seconds to convert its first power play of the night. Moss has 10 goals this season, six coming in the last nine games.
Raycroft entered the game with a 2.05 goals-against-average and sparkling .934 save percentage. However, things did not go well on this night.
Tied 2-2 in the second, Calgary broke the game open with three straight goals.
Backlund neatly tipped Tim Jackman’s centring pass over Raycroft’s shoulder at 11:51. The Flames then really fired up the sellout crowd of 19,289 with goals 54 seconds apart from Moss and Morrison, scored his first goal in 17 games.
However, Morrison’s goal scoring slump paled in comparison to the 129-game stretch Dallas’s Grossman had gone before his point shot at 19:12 of the second eluded a screened Karlsson to get the Stars back to within two.
Both goalies were beaten twice on seven shots in the first.
The Flames struck first at 3:40 when Brendan Morrison tipped a shot on goal, collected his own rebound and found Tanguay alone for his 12th goal of the season.
At 8:34, Ribeiro set up Morrow from behind the net. The direction of the pass fooled Karlsson, who was on the wrong side of the net as Morrow snapped in his 19th goal. Four minutes later, Ribeiro’s pass sent Richards in on a 2-on-1 and after waiting for the six-foot-five Karlsson to drop to his knees, Richards fired a shot over his shoulder.
Jokinen tied it at 15:10, holding on to the puck on a 2-on-1 and scoring his ninth goal of the season on a wrist shot to the top corner.