In Dallas, the Stars’ Jake Oettinger made 17 saves in a 4-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night.
Denis Gurianov posted two markers for Dallas.
“It feels good,” Gurianov said. “We won the game and we got two points. Important points for us. We’re playing for the playoffs. It felt good to score two goals and help my team to win.”
The Stars are 3-0-2 in their last five.
“We made some plays that we hurt ourselves,” Columbus head coach John Tortorella said. “For the life of me, we don’t understand situational play. It is so frustrating to me that we don’t grasp situational play.”
The Blue Jackets took a 1-0 lead on a goal from Jack Roslovic in the first period.
“Momentum changes in a game, and it changes pretty quick,” Roslovic said. “They took advantage of that. It’s a good example of that. We have to take it as a learning curve. A couple of mistakes leads to something. Nothing too crazy. It just happens.”
Gurianov and Miro Heiskanen scored in rapid succession iin the middle frame to give the Stars a 2-1 lead.
“That was his (Gurianov) best game by far,” Stars coach Rick Bowness said. “We’ve been after Denis. We say, ‘You’ve got to work and you’ve got to compete.’ If you do those two things, everything else will take care of itself, everything will fall into line.
“He’s a big powerful guy. I keep telling him that the last thing a defenseman wants to see is you coming down full speed.”
Dallas’ Joe Pavelski scored at 15:08 of the third period for the 4-1 final.
Elvis Merzlikins made 27 saves in the loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.