The Dallas Stars claimed their first win of the season with a 5-2 victory over the Calgary Flames on Friday, consigning the home side to their first loss of the year.
The Stars (1-0-2) had goals from five different players, while goaltender Alex Auld, making his first start of the new season in place of Marty Turco, made 21 saves.
“It felt good, I had a lot of help,” said Auld, who had arrived in Dallas via a trade from the Ottawa Senators in the off-season.
“It was my first chance to make an impression and it turned out pretty good,” he said.
Dallas began each of the first two periods on fire, with Mike Ribeiro beating Calgary goalie Curtis McElhinney one minute into the game, while Brian Sutherby doubled the lead less than a minute into the second period.
A power-play opportunity early in the second set up Dion Phaneuf’s slap shot goal to make it 2-1, but Tom Wandell answered for Dallas less than five minutes later.
Rene Bourque pulled one back for Calgary early in the third, before Loui Eriksson scored his first goal of the year after 9 minutes, 25 seconds and Brad Richards recorded an empty-netter with 47 seconds left.
With the defeat, the Flames (4-1-0) failed to set a new mark for their best start to a season for the franchise.
The Stars had endured shootout losses to Nashville and Edmonton before getting their first victory of the season.
“We’ll build some momentum out of this,” Stars coach Marc Crawford said. “There were a lot of real positives. This was a pretty good team win.”
■HURRICANES 7,
PANTHERS 2
AP, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA
Tom Kostopoulos and Jussi Jokinen scored first-period goals off turnovers in Florida’s end and Cam Ward made 25 saves to help the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Panthers on Friday night.
Tuomo Ruutu also scored in the opening period for the Hurricanes, who dominated early and then cruised to a second straight victory against a Southeast Division rival. Carolina beat Tampa Bay in a shootout for their first win on Tuesday night.
Ray Whitney, Matt Cullen, Rod Brind’Amour and Jay Harrison also scored for Carolina. Shawn Matthias and Michael Frolik scored for Florida.
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