Oilers Have Dallas Seeing Stars After 3-2 Victory

The Edmonton Oilers got back to basics in the third period and came from behind to beat the Dallas Stars.

Radek Dvorak scored early in the third period to lead Edmonton to a wild 3-2 victory over the Stars on Sunday night in Edmonton, giving the Oilers a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven Western Conference playoff series.

The Oilers trailed, 1-0, heading into the third period, but the Edmonton coaches instructed the players to be more aggressive.

“The coaches said we have to start getting the puck on the net,” Georges Laraque said. “We were trying to do too many pretty plays in front of the net.”

Laraque and Fernando Pisani also scored for the Oilers, who play host for Game 4 Tuesday night.

Laraque said the victory was a huge boost to the Oilers’ confidence following the club’s 6-1 loss in Dallas on Friday.

“It was a tough loss in Dallas,” he said. “We had to bounce back at home. We’ll build on this.”

Jason Arnott and Jere Lehtinen had the goals for Dallas, which led, 1-0, until early in the third period.

With the score tied 2-2, Dvorak took the puck at center-ice, split the defense and fired a shot past Marty Turco at 5:38 of the third period.

Edmonton had to work hard to preserve the lead, killing a late holding penalty against Marty Reasoner. Then with 49 seconds left, Dallas pulled Turco for the extra attacker but couldn’t score.

Dallas went into the third leading 1-0 on Arnott’s power-play goal in the first period.

But what had been a goaltenders’ duel between Turco and Edmonton’s Tommy Salo started to unravel at 2:33 of the third when Laraque muscled the puck up the boards and pushed it past Turco to tie it at 1-1.

Dallas played without defenseman Derian Hatcher, who sat out with an automatic suspension resulting from misconducts in the first two games.

New Jersey 3, Boston 0 -- Martin Brodeur’s latest shutout has the Devils one win away from the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

Brodeur posted his 14th shutout in 70 career playoff wins when he stopped 29 shots at Boston. Brodeur led the league with 41 wins and nine shutouts and was fourth with a 2.02 goals against average.

New Jersey can complete the sweep of the best-of-seven series Tuesday night in Boston and send the Bruins to another first-round exit. Seeded first in the Eastern Conference last season, they lost in six games to Montreal.

Now they face a tough task. In the 13 series in which they trailed 3-0, the Bruins never made it to a sixth game. They lost seven of those series, 4-0, and six 4-1.

The Devils got goals from Scott Stevens in the second period, Jay Pandolfo in the third and John Madden into an empty net with 1:06 left.