Penguins 3, Stars 1
James Neal burned his former team by netting a pair of power-play goals as the Pittsburgh Penguins skated to a 3-1 home triumph over the Dallas Stars on Friday in a battle of conference leaders.
Matt Cooke converted a penalty shot and Marc-Andre Fleury remained perfect in five career starts versus Dallas by turning aside 19 shots for Atlantic Division-leading Pittsburgh, which improved to 5-1-1 at Consol Energy Center this season.
With defenseman Sheldon Souray serving a high-sticking penalty, Neal gave Pittsburgh a 2-1 advantage at the 7:19 mark of the third after his pass caromed off the stick of Dallas blue-liner Mark Fistric and into the net.
Cooke doubled the advantage just over two minutes later. After being tripped by defenseman Trevor Daley on a breakaway, Cooke wristed his penalty shot past Lehtonen to send the home crowd into a frenzy.
Eric Nystrom netted his fourth goal in as many games and Lehtonen finished with 29 saves for Pacific Division-leading Dallas, which saw its four-game winning streak come to an end.
To add injury to insult, the Stars saw defenseman Alex Goligoski exit with an upper body injury in the first period. Goligoski was playing in his first game against his former team.
Dallas opened the scoring with 3:52 remaining in the first period after Radek Dvorak's brilliant backhanded cross-slot feed found Nystrom, who lifted the puck past Fleury.