Nieuwendyk Is Star Among Stars With Goal in Overtime

Joe Nieuwendyk, who sat out the playoffs last year, scored 8:22 into overtime Saturday night to give the Dallas Stars a 5-4 victory over the St. Louis Blues.

Nieuwendyk suffered a knee injury in the first period of the Stars’ first playoff game in 1998, but he is injury-free now, and that’s good news for the Stars.

“He’s making up for lost time,” Dallas Coach Ken Hitchcock said. “He is a very focused individual. He’s a very determined player right now.”

Nieuwendyk took a perfect pass from Sergei Zubov as both teams played a man short in a four-on-four situation and whipped a shot from just inside the right circle past the glove of goaltender Grant Fuhr. It was Nieuwendyk’s second goal of the game to go along with an assist.

“Zuby gave me a nice pass and I was able to take it wide, which is something I like to do,” Nieuwendyk said. “I hit the crossbar in the third period in a similar situation. This time it went straight in.”

The victory gave the Stars a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference semifinal series. Game 3 is Monday night at St. Louis.

Dallas struck early in the third period to tie the score at 4-4 when Jere Lehtinen scored on a rebound after a shot by Mike Modano to send the game into overtime.

Pavol Demitra scored his second goal of the game in the second period with only one second remaining on a five-on-three power play to give the Blues a 4-3 lead. Al MacInnis fed Demitra a perfect centering pass and Demitra found the open side of the net to beat a diving Ed Belfour.

“My goals don’t matter because we lost,” Demitra said. “It was a very tough game for us to lose but we have plenty of games left. It was good to finally get some goals against them, and scoring is what I have to do.”

Scott Young and Pierre Turgeon got the other two goals in a productive second period for the Blues. Turgeon played despite a sore leg, the result of being slashed by Pat Verbeek in the opening game of the series.

Nieuwendyk and Mike Keane scored for the Stars in the wild second period when both teams broke away on numerous odd-man rushes.

Both Verbeek of the Stars and Jamal Mayers of the Blues weren’t available because of the one-game suspensions they drew for slashing incidents in Dallas’ 3-0 victory on Thursday night.

The game marked the return of the Stars’ Derian Hatcher, who was suspended for seven games after breaking the jaw of the Phoenix Coyotes’ Jeremy Roenick on April 14.

Playoff Notes

Jaromir Jagr has a sore muscle in his upper right leg but intends to play tonight when his Pittsburgh Penguins play the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 2 of their series. “I just have to play through it,” he said. “I’ve got two options: play with the pain or sit. It’s kind of frustrating, but even though I can’t play 100% I can still help this team.” In Pittsburgh’s 2-0 victory in Game 1, Jagr was on the ice longer than usual. “I cannot skate, so that’s why I don’t get tired,” he said. “I can stay longer.”