Boyle scores twice, Devils defeat Stars

NEWARK, N.J.-- Brian Boyle scored twice, including the 100th goal of his NHL career, which turned out to be the game-winner for the New Jersey Devils in a 5-2 victory against the Dallas Stars at Prudential Center on Friday.

Boyle scored a power-play goal at 16:39 of the second period to give New Jersey a 3-2 lead. He has eight goals this season, seven in his past 11 games.
Steven Santini, Blake Coleman and Nick Lappin scored for the Devils (18-9-5), and Cory Schneider made 28 saves.
WATCH: [All Stars vs. Devils highlights]
"It wasn't perfect," Boyle said. "We had to grind it out a little bit, had to find our way. [Schneider] was huge when we needed him to be and he gave us extra time to find our footing."
Martin Hanzal and Alexander Radulov scored for Dallas (18-14-1), which won the first two games of a four-game road trip. Kari Lehtonen made 21 saves.

Stars coach Ken Hitchcock remained at 799 NHL wins; he is one from joining Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville (866) and Hockey Hall of Famer Scotty Bowman (1,244) as the coaches with 800 NHL wins.
"We had a couple of shifts where we had our chances but we didn't execute," Dallas defenseman John Klingberg said. "That's what we need to do to win a game like this on the road."
The Stars, who were 0-for-15 on the power play in their prior six games, went 1-for-3 but did not score during a 53-second, 5-on-3 chance.
"We had some pretty good opportunities," Dallas forward Tyler Seguin said. "We had a couple of power plays but just didn't finish. We had a lot of pressure on us for the first time in the past two, three games. We didn't react to it quick enough, and we have to get ready for tomorrow (at the Philadelphia Flyers)."
Santini gave the Devils a 1-0 lead at 4:28 of the first period when he took a pass from Brian Gibbons and beat Lehtonen with a slap shot. Hanzal tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal at 6:42 on the first shot of the game for the Stars.
Coleman scored with 54 seconds remaining in the period to give the Devils a 2-1 lead.

"We got goals from guys that you may not normally think are going to score goals," Schneider said. "That's how we've been all year. We've gotten a lot of depth scoring. You talk about a team effort, that was the epitome of it."
Radulov tied it 2-2, putting the puck under Schneider's legs at 8:09 of the second period.

"We had chances to come back, really good chances, but we didn't put the puck in the back of the net," Radulov said. "We didn't play that well in our zone ... tomorrow's another strong hockey club, and we know they are ready so we need to be ready."
Lappin made it 4-2 at 12:57 of the third period scoring off a rebound from a shot by Boyle.
Boyle scored an empty-net goal with 2:00 remaining.
"We talk about [Boyle's] intangibles and presence, but he's a player," Schneider said. "He can score, he can play the game. Sometimes I think people lose sight of that. He's an important guy for us."

Goal of the game

Boyle's goal at 16:39 of the second period.

Save of the game

Schneider's save on Benn with 3:28 remaining in the third period.

Highlight of the game

Schneider's save on Radulov at 18:09 of the third period.

They said it

"We're going to bring all the good stuff and positive stuff into tomorrow. That's going to be a hard game as well with some good pace. ... It's going to be a fun game tomorrow and we are sure excited to get back right away and play." -- Stars defenseman John Klingberg
"We talked about being self-starters and making sure we found a way to dig in and compete tonight, and I thought the guys did a real good job of that and probably got stronger and stronger as the game went on as far as the compete level and intensity level of the game." -- Devils coach John Hynes

Need to know

Boyle has played 646 NHL games. … Devils forward Taylor Hall (knee contusion) missed his second straight game. ... Devils forward Stefan Noesen had an NHL career-high five-game point streak end (two goals, four assists). ... The Stars are 5-2-0 in their past seven road games. ... Stars forward Antoine Roussel, who returned after missing two games with an elbow injury, had one shot on goal in 11:05.

What's next

Stars: At the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSP, FS-SW+, NHL.TV)
Devils: Host the Anaheim Ducks on Monday (7 p.m. ET; MSG+, KCOP-13, NHL.TV)