Benn, Stars end four-game skid with OT win against Flames

CALGARY --Jamie Benn scored with 2:01 remaining in overtime for the Dallas Stars, who got their first win in five games with a 4-3 victory against the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome on Thursday.

Benn took a drop pass in the high slot from Joe Pavelski and shot past Jacob Markstrom's glove.
"Just a simple cross and drop," Benn said. "We've been trying to work on things for 3-on-3 overtime. Just worked out."
Miro Heiskanen had three assists, and Anton Khudobin made 30 saves for the Stars (4-4-2), who were 0-2-2 in their past four games.
"We talked about them a little bit, but it was so much on us tonight with kind of how our season has been going," Dallas forward Tyler Seguin said. "We had a long meeting yesterday. It was more about how we wanted to play and how we wanted to get our identity back of what our organization is like. I thought we did a good job with that tonight. I don't think it mattered too much who we were playing. Our thought process was on us."
Nikita Zadorov had a goal and an assist, and Markstrom made 24 saves for the Flames (6-1-3), who have lost consecutive games but are 6-0-3 during a nine-game point streak.
"We earned the point by those guys who made those hard plays to get us the point, but we're not going to win unless everybody is on top of their game," Calgary coach Darryl Sutter said. "It is what it is. It's a process for these guys. A lot of returning players, but it's baby steps for a lot of guys."
Denis Gurianov put Dallas ahead 1-0 at 14:09 of the first period when he tapped in a backdoor pass from Heiskanen on the power play.
"Miro's a great player," Benn said. "He prepares well. Obviously, he's taking his game to the next level. Am I surprised? No. Do we expect it every night? It's hard to do that every night for 82 games, but he's pretty close to it."

Lucic tied it 1-1 at 15:13 of the second period when his deflection of Zadorov's point shot trickled past Khudobin. His goal came after Markstrom kept it a one-goal game with by stopping Roope Hintz's shot in the slot at 11:52 and Heiskanen's wrist shot from the slot at 14:17.
"It obviously wasn't a good first period, and our game got better in the second," Lucic said.
Matthew Tkachuk scored on a setup by Elias Lindholm during a 5-on-3 power play at 18:41 put Calgary up 2-1, but Blake Comeau tied it 2-2 with 5.6 seconds remaining in the period on a 2-on-1 shortly after exiting the penalty box.
"That's a very good hockey club over there and they've been on fire all year, and great first period, and we knew there'd be a big push," Dallas coach Rick Bowness said. "Sometimes in this game, you bend a little bit, but as long as you don't break. That goal by Blake at the end of the second period was actually huge. Taking a 2-2 game into the third period, we'd take that."

Seguin gave the Stars a 3-2 lead at 1:34 of the third period with a deflection of Alexander Radulov's point shot. He has six points (four goals, two assists) in his past six games.
"He's competing a lot more, playing the right way," Benn said. "When you do that, you're going to get more points."
Zadorov scored his first goal with the Flames to tie it 3-3 at 16:03. He beat Khudobin glove side with a wrist shot from the high slot.
"It wasn't our A game, and I don't think we were very sharp and our execution wasn't there, but what's nice to see is that we're competing till the end of the game, we're not getting away from our game," Lucic said. "We're sticking with it and we're getting ourselves back into games, keeping ourselves in games."
NOTES: Benn's overtime goal was his 10th in the NHL, passing Mike Modano for the most in Stars history. … Radulov has four points (one goal, three assists) during a four-game point streak. ... Gurianov was a healthy scratch in a 4-3 shootout loss at the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday. … Tkachuk has five points (four goals, one assist) in a five-game point streak. ... Forward Brad Richardson had two hits in 9:00 of ice time in his Flames debut.