Published November 20, 2014
The unlikely duo of Cory Sarich and Steve Staios scored just over two minutes apart in the third period and sent the surging Calgary Flames to a 4-2 victory over the Dallas Stars on Wednesday night.
Sarich, a defenseman, gave Calgary the lead at 2:35 with his third goal of the season, a snap shot into the top corner from just inside the blue line.
Then, with the Flames short handed, Staios jumped up to join Rene Bourque on a rush, took Bourque's pas and fired a long slap shot past Kari Lehtonen for his second goal.
Dallas coach Marc Crawford pulled Lehtonen immediately and replaced him with Andrew Raycroft. However, Lehtonen returned to the net after the next stoppage.
Olli Jokinen and Tom Kostopolous also scored for Calgary, which has used a 10-1-2 run to move into eighth place in the Western Conference — one point ahead of Los Angeles.
The Flames are 6-0-2 in their last eight home games and have four remaining on a five-game homestand. Their next game will be played outdoors Sunday at McMahon Stadium against the Montreal Canadiens in the Heritage Classic.
Mike Ribeiro and Jamie Langenbrunner scored for Dallas, which played without leading scorer Brad Richards for the second game after he was shaken up in a collision on Sunday.
Dallas is 1-6-1 in its last eight and has lost six straight on the road. The Stars will wrap up their three-game road trip through Western Canada on Saturday in Vancouver.
Calgary outshot Dallas 16-3 in taking a 1-0 lead in the first period. The Stars played better in the second period and benefited from fortuitous bounces.
The bad luck around the Flames net began when Matt Niskanen's shot, going way wide, caromed sharply off the skate of Calgary defenseman Anton Babchuk and nearly got past goalie Miikka Kiprusoff, who made an alert save.
The Stars tied it two minutes later on another pinball-like goal from Ribeiro.
Ribeiro lost control of the puck on a well-defended 2-on-1, but as he gathered it near the corner and whipped it toward the net, it changed directions off the stick of defenseman Robyn Regehr and bounced in off the shin of Jokinen.
The Stars took the lead at 10:47 on another strange one. James Neal's shot toward the net went off Bourque's stick and zipped straight to Langenbrunner in the slot for his sixth goal.
Calgary tied it at 14:09 when Kostopolous tipped in Rene Bourque's slap shot.
Calgary opened the scoring at 4:14 of the first period when defenseman Mark Giordano's low slap shot from the blue line was deflected in by Jokinen for his 13th goal.
Kiprusoff (26-19-4) made 22 saves in his 12th consecutive start.
Lehtonen stopped 27 shots.
Notes: Dallas D Stephane Robidas played in his 700th NHL game. ... Since the Flames sent Ales Kotalik to Abbotsford of the AHL on Jan. 27, he has no goals and six assists in seven games. ... Calgary LW Curtis Glencross' five-game goal streak ended. ... The Flames are 13-4-5 since Darryl Sutter stepped down as general manager and was replaced by Jay Feaster.
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/sarich-staios-push-flames-past-stars