Stars Halt Avalanche In OT

Dallas defenseman Brad Lukowich didn't want to waste his rare scoring chance to give the Stars a victory.

Lukowich buried the opportunity with a back-hander from the slot with 3:13 left in overtime as the Stars beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 Saturday.

Lukowich skated up from the blue line and scored through the pads of goalie Patrick Roy, converting Ted Donato's pass from behind the net.

"If I would have messed that one up, I'd be hearing about it for a long, long time," said Lukowich of his third goal of the season and seventh career. "I was going to go for the forehand, but I saw a (defenseman) coming and got good wood on it on the backhand."

Lukowich was on the ice during the 4-on-4 overtime because the Stars were without injured forwards Joe Nieuwendyk and Jamie Langenbrunner.

The coaching staff's confidence in Lukowich has been growing. He's the team's fifth defenseman, but he leads the Stars with a plus-minus rating of plus-23.

The victory was the Stars' first over the Avalanche at home in seven games.

Joe Sakic's 40th goal late in the second period pulled Colorado into a 2-2 tie. Sakic beat goalie Ed Belfour on a back-hander from the slot at 17:37.

The teams play again Sunday night at Denver, where the Avalanche are 23-5-4-2.

"They played like a desperate team," Colorado center Peter Forsberg said. "They really fought for pucks, and we didn't play as well as we should have. Every game with them is a battle."

Dallas has beaten Colorado in the Western Conference finals in each of the last two seasons. Saturday's game had a playoff feel.

Colorado, which leads the league with 99 points, was 3-0-3 in its previous six regular-season games in Dallas. The Stars are 3-6-3 against the Avalanche the last three seasons.

"That was playoff intensity hockey on both sides," Colorado coach Bob Hartley said. "It seems every game in this building, you can't predict the script. They worked hard and deserved it. Don't count them out when the playoffs start."

The Stars were coming off one of their poorest performances of the season, a 4-1 home loss to Chicago on Wednesday night, and to stumble again against one of their biggest rivals would have been a major setback.

"We fire our gun into our foot, hobble around, and then here we go again," Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We're very resilient. We showed our ability to raise our level to a high performance."

Darryl Sydor and Mike Modano scored first-period goals for Dallas. Rob Blake had a first-period goal for Colorado.

Dallas nearly scored the go-ahead goal with 16:59 left in regulation when Modano's deflection got through Roy and slid through the crease. Avalanche defenseman Ray Bourque took possession just before the puck crossed the goal line and skated out of trouble.

Sakic nearly broke the tie with 3:45 remaining in the third when his shot hit the post.

Dallas took the lead 1:06 in when Sydor's shot from the left point beat a screened Roy. Colorado tied it at 1 at 10:22 of the first period on Blake's 55-footer from the right point while the Avalanche were on a power play.

Modano's goal at 4:42 of the first gave the Stars a 2-1 lead. Modano charged up the right side and fired into the upper left corner of the net for his 25th goal.

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