Jamie Benn snapped a nine-game scoring drought with two goals including the game-winner on Thursday night as the Dallas Stars beat the Calgary Flames 4-2.
When an offensive-zone penalty by Alex Chiasson put the Stars on the power play early in the third, it took less than a minute for Dallas to take advantage against the Flames 29th-ranked penalty kill.
A quick passing sequence down low was capped off neatly by Benn, who fired a feed from Tyler Seguin past Brian Elliott at 7:20 while alone in the slot to give his team a 3-2 lead.
After a career-best 41 goals last season, Benn had just two goals in his first 13 games and the slow start for him and Seguin, as well as the team, led to coach Lindy Ruff putting the two on separate lines against the Flames.
Lauri Korpikoski and Antoine Roussel with an empty netter also scored for Dallas (5-6-3), which snapped a five-game winless skid. The Stars are 1-1-1 with two stops to go on a five-game road trip, which continues Friday in Edmonton.
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Johnny Gaudreau scored both goals for Calgary (5-9-1). The Flames have lost five of their last six overall. In particular, they continue to struggle at home, where they fall to 2-5-0 on the season.
With the Flames trailing 2-0, Gaudreau came out flying to start the second, breaking a six-game scoring drought with his third and fourth goals on his first two shifts to tie it.
At 1:33, he jammed in a loose puck after Kari Lehtonen could not control Brett Kulak’s hard slapshot.
Kulak was also the shooter on his second goal less than two minutes later, this time it was Gaudreau deflecting the point shot over Lehtonen’s shoulder.
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Calgary opened the game taking the play to the Stars and running up an 8-1 advantage on the shot clock. But they could not beat Lehtonen and eventually Dallas scored first.
At 12:31, teammates Dougie Hamilton and Sam Bennett lost a puck battle along the end boards with Radek Faksa sliding the puck in front, where it was snapped into the top corner by Korpikoski.
Benn made it 2-0 three minutes later on some poor defensive coverage. When the entire slot opened up before him and he took the puck to the net and zipped a backhand past Elliott.
It was a better night for Lehtonen after giving up four goals on 11 shots Tuesday in Winnipeg. He finished with 29 saves to improve to 2-4-2.
Elliott, who had 18 saves, fell to 3-7-0.
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