Stars blitz Avs

Dallas
Stars

"We played tonight's game as if it was the seventh game of the series," Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said. "It's that style of play and tenacity that we're going to have to play with the rest of the series. We certainly played 60 minutes and did an awful lot of things we need to do to beat a hockey club such as Colorado. We're just going to have to keep our level of intensity up when we go there for Games Three and Four."

Joe Nieuwendyk scored the game-winner in the third period breaking the 2-2 tie. Only Patrick Roy's spectacular saves kept the Avalanche in the game under constant barrage of shots by the Stars.

"It was a great play by Hatcher and Verbeek and I was left all alone for the rebound," Nieuwendyk said. "I had plenty of time to put it home. It would've been awfully tough to go down two games in this series. We played much harder today and we had a very determined effort which really paid off for us in the third period."

Dave Reid, Sergei Zubov and Mike Modano also scored for the Stars, who dominated the game thoroughly. Modano has three goals and five assists in the last five games.

"I thought our patience with the puck was exceptional tonight," added Modano. "We were very strong with our puckhandling down low and in the corners and we did a real good job of getting the puck in front and creating scoring opportunities. That type of patience and puck control was something we did not have in Game One."

Sandis Ozolinsh and Milan Hejduk scored for the Avs, who saw their seven-game road winning streak in the playoffs come to an end.

"They played a very strong game and Belfour came up with some big saves at the right time," Avalanche coach Bob Hartley said. "They had better legs than us and were hungrier than us and deserved to win the game. We were not on the puck as much as we should have been and our forecheck was not very good. When the forecheck is not working, they can do whatever they want and that's what happened tonight."