Gurianov scores two goals for Stars in win against Blue Jackets

Denis Gurianov scored two goals and had an assist for the Dallas Stars in a 4-1 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets at American Airlines Center in Dallas on Thursday.

Gurianov ended a 10-game goal drought, and Miro Heiskanen scored 1:19 later in the second period for the Stars (16-14-12), who extended their point streak to five games (3-0-2). Jake Oettinger made 17 saves.
"It feels good," Gurianov said. "We won the game and we got two points. Important points for us. We're playing for the playoffs. It felt good to score two goals and help my team to win."
Elvis Merzlikins made 27 saves for the Blue Jackets (15-21-9), who have lost four in a row and 11 of 13.
The teams will play again in Dallas on Saturday.
"We made some plays that we hurt ourselves," Columbus coach John Tortorella said. "For the life of me, we don't understand situational play. It is so frustrating to me that we don't grasp situational play."
The Stars are in sixth place in the eight-team Discover Central Division but moved within five points of the fourth-place Nashville Predators, who lost 4-1 at the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday. Dallas has played three fewer games than Nashville. The Blue Jackets are seventh in the Central, 10 points behind the Predators. The top four teams will qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Jack Roslovic gave Columbus a 1-0 lead on its first shot on goal at 7:16 of the first period. He gathered a turnover in the neutral zone and completed the rush with a tap-in off a pass from Michael Del Zotto skating down the slot.

Gurianov tied it 1-1 at 16:42 of the second period when he scored on his own rebound after being set up by Jason Dickinson, who jumped off the bench to keep the puck in the zone and passed to Gurianov in front.
"That was his best game by far," Stars coach Rick Bowness said of Gurianov. "We've been after Denis. We say, 'You've got to work and you've got to compete.' If you do those two things, everything else will take care of itself, everything will fall into line.
"He's a big powerful guy. I keep telling him that the last thing a defenseman wants to see is you coming down full speed."
Heiskanen gave Dallas a 2-1 lead at 18:01 when he made a move around forward Oliver Bjorkstrand in the right face-off circle and beat Merzlikins with Jamie Benn setting up a screen in front.
"Momentum changes in a game, and it changes pretty quick," Roslovic said. "They took advantage of that. It's a good example of that. We have to take it as a learning curve. A couple of mistakes leads to something. Nothing too crazy. It just happens."

Gurianov extended the Stars lead to 3-1 at 8:16 of the third period when his shot near the left corner went in off Del Zotto's left shin.
Joe Pavelski scored his Dallas-leading 17th goal at 15:08 for the 4-1 final.
''Kind of with this group, if we get one goal, we're going to get more,'' Benn said.
Blue Jackets center Josh Dunne made his NHL debut and had two hits in 12:04. He was signed March 14 after three seasons with Clarkson University.
"He did some good things," Tortorella said. "You can see he's an intelligent player. He asks the right questions. He asks questions that I don't think some guys that have played in this league five, six seven years would ask."
NOTES: Oettinger is 4-0-1 against the Blue Jackets this season. … Forward Jason Robertson had an assist to reach 30 points in a season faster than any Stars rookie since the team moved from Minnesota to Dallas in 1993. He has 12 goals and 18 assists in 37 games. … Three of Heiskanen's seven goals this season have been scored against Columbus. … Stars defenseman John Klingberg has an assist in three straight games. … Blue Jackets defenseman Scott Harrington played his 200th NHL game. … Roslovic has scored seven points (three goals, four assists) in the past five games.