Brad Richards scored two goals and James Neal had the overtime winner to lead the Dallas Stars past the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3 on Wednesday night at American Airlines Center.
Neal’s seventh marker gave the Stars (6-2-4) their third win in four games, while the Leafs (1-8-2) picked up their third point in the first three of what will be a five game road trip.
Toronto Maple Leafs fail to get their second win of the season in 4-3 overtime loss against Dallas.
[audio:http://torontoobserver.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/leafs-vs-stars-podcast.mp3]They won their first game of the season on Monday in Anaheim.
Mike Riberio got the the tying goal in the third for the Stars, while Nikolai Kulemin scored two and Lee Stempniak added another for the Leafs.
Marty Turco (4-2-3) made 33 in the victory, his third win in a row while Jonas Gustavsson (1-3) took the loss despite a 31-save performance, one game after recording his first career victory.
After Kulemin got his second at 13:11 of the third to give the Leafs a 3-2 lead, Ribeiro responded just over four minutes later, with his second in eight games, to tie the game at 3-3.
That enabled Neal the opportunity to net the winner at 2:57 of overtime after both clubs had chances.
Teams trade goals in the third
An Alexei Ponikarovsky interference penalty 27 seconds into the final frame, followed by a Mike Komisarek call for high sticking at 1:32 put the Stars on the power play.
Richards then fired his second of the game, a 41-foot slapshot past Gustavsson 20 seconds later for the 2-1 lead.
But Dallas got itself in some penalty trouble as well as Brendan Morrow was called for holding Matt Stajan and the Leafs responded.
Stempniak fired home his third goal on the year and the Leafs’ right winger now has five points in his last two games.
Richards opens the scoring for Dallas
Richards, the former Conn Smythe winner, fired a shot that deflected off Ian White past the Leafs goaltender for the 1-0 lead, the 10th time this season the Maple Leafs have allowed the first goal.
But Kulemin responded, as his wrister squeezed past Turco a minute and 47 seconds later to tie the game at 1-1. The sophomore Russian winger has endured a rough start to his campaign as he has been a healthy scratch four times already.
Notes: Jason Blake’s three assists ties a career-high … Stars centre Steve Ott was not in the lineup as he served the first of his two-game suspension for his illegal hit on St. Louis’ Carlo Colaiacovo Oct. 24 … Dallas has won three straight games against Toronto … The Leafs will continue their road trip with a meeting against the Buffalo Sabres on Friday, followed by a trip to the Bell Centre to take on the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday before returning home Nov. 3 to take on the Tampa Bay Lightning.