Spezza, Stars defeat Oilers, end four-game skid

DALLAS -- Jason Spezza had a goal and an assist, and Antti Niemi made 23 saves to help the Dallas Stars end a four-game losing streak with a 3-2 win against the Edmonton Oilers at American Airlines Center on Thursday.
Spezza scored his 16th of the season on a backhand 1:23 into the first period and assisted on Jyrki Jokipakka's game-winning goal late in the second.

"It's always tough to get a win when you're losing a few games in a row, so it was a big win for us," Spezza said. "It's a tough game coming back from the West Coast, and I thought it helped us to play with the lead most of the night."
Jamie Benn scored for Dallas (30-13-5), which lost all three games on its California road trip (0-2-1).
Teddy Purcell and Nail Yakupov scored for Edmonton (19-25-5), which went 1-2-0 on its three-game road trip.
"It's tough when you give up one early, but we got better as the game went on, and that's a positive," Purcell said. "But at the end of the day, it seems like we're on the wrong side of those more than the good side."
Yakupov scored his fourth goal with 3:03 remaining to make it 3-2. He beat Niemi to the short side on a wrist shot from the slot that deflected in off the Dallas goalie's right pad.
"We played a good game. We had our chances to score," Oilers forward Jordan Eberle said. "I thought our power play was clicking. We made it interesting there at the end, but it's just one of those games when you get your chances, you got to be able to bear down and score, because they're going to score theirs. They got some good shooters over there and they did that."
Edmonton goalie Cam Talbot made 32 saves.
Trailing 1-0 after the first period, Eberle nearly tied it at 6:17 of the second, but his rising one-timer from the left circle instead hit the crossbar, one of three times Edmonton hit the post.
Jokipakka had an apparent goal at 9:31 of the second period waved off after Oilers coach Todd McLellan challenged it. Video review determined Stars forward Ales Hemsky was offside before Jokipakka beat Talbot.
"He was very good. He was physical," Dallas coach Lindy Ruff said of Jokipakka. "Obviously, we would have loved to see the goal count. We've had a couple of those now when we've gone offside. That's a mental error. It was a play that we could have stayed onside, I felt, but Jokipakka was really good."
Benn scored an unassisted goal at 13:16 of the second to make it 2-0. He beat Talbot to the far post with a wrist shot from the slot for his 27 th goal.
"We got two points, and that's the main thing," Benn said.
Purcell cut the Dallas lead to 2-1 with his 11th goal at 17:04 of the second with Edmonton on the power play. Twenty seconds earlier, he hit the crossbar with a wrist shot from the left circle.
"[Yakupov] made a great play, and I probably wouldn't have slept too well tonight if I had the whole open net," Purcell said. "I just tried to get it up and it hit the crossbar, but Taylor [Hall] did a great job in front. Just tried to get it through, one of those ones where if you get the shots through and there's that much traffic, some of them are bound to go in."
Jokipakka restored the Stars' two-goal lead 15 seconds after Purcell scored. His wrist shot from the high slot deflected in off Oilers forward Benoit Pouliot's stick for his second goal of the season.
"They come down, we're doing some good things in our end, and they float one to the net and it goes off [Pouliot]'s stick and in," McLellan said. "We'd like to have that one back and we can't get it."
Stars center Tyler Seguin hit the crossbar on a one-timer from the left circle early in the third period, and Benn hit the right post 35 seconds later.
"That last power play, [Benn and Seguin had] two or three real good looks to get on the board," Ruff said. "I thought they played the game the right way, stayed above it when they had no good looks. For the most part offensively, I thought they did a pretty good job."
Oilers defenseman Brandon Davidson will miss the game Saturday against the Nashville Predators after he sustained an undisclosed injury in the second period.
"He was fine in the first [period], at least from what I understood, but he took a hit to an area that is pretty tender," McLellan said. "He's out. He won't play next game, and I don't know how long it'll be."