DALLAS — Josh Leivo scored in the fourth round of the shootout to lift the Vancouver Canucks to a 3-2 winover the Dallas Stars on Sunday night.
Leivo’s shot went over Stars goalie Anton Khudobin after Canucks goalie Jacob Markstrom had stopped four Dallas skaters.
Vancouver’s Tim Schaller scored twice in the first 11 minutes for his first goals in nearly a year. It was his first career multi-goal game. Markstrom finished with 44 saves.
Jamie Benn and Taylor Fedun had the goals for Dallas. Khudobin had 25 saves and stopped a penalty shot for the second straight game. The Stars, who hold the first wild card in the Western Conference, remained two points behind third-place St. Louis in the Central Division.
Fedun tied the score with 3:50 left in regulation as he sent a rising slap shot from above the left faceoff in to Markstrom’s left side, and the puck trickled past the goal line.
Both of Schaller’s goals followed battles for the puck in the left corner of the Canucks’ offensive zone. On the first, 52 seconds into the game, Jay Beagle dug out the puck and sent it to Schaller. He skated behind the net toward the right corner, from where he fitted a wrist shot into a gap between Khudobin’s glove and the right goalpost.
For Schaller’s second goal, Brock Boeser got control of the puck and passed to Elias Pettersson. He passed to Schaller at the top of the left faceoff circle for a snap shot that beat Khudobin with 9:07 left in the period.
Schaller had not scored in 55 regular-season and playoff games since last March 29 while playing for Boston. Three games before that, he had scored a short-handed goal in Dallas. Schaller has 23 career goals in 214 games. His three against the Stars, in seven games, are the most he has scored against any team.
A frequent healthy scratch this season, Schaller was in the lineup for just the third time in 19 games.
For the second game in a row, Khudobin gave up a goal in the first minute of the game and stopped a penalty shot in the second period.
John Klingberg was penalized for holding Pettersson on a breakaway. The Canucks’ leading scorer skated in close enough that Khudobin could poke the puck away from him.
The Stars finally scored on their 27th shot on goal, with 22 seconds left in the second period. Benn took a pass from Valeri Nichushkin in the right circle and whistled a wrist shot past Markstrom and inside the left post for his 26th.
NOTES: C Tyler Seguin, who leads the Stars with 27 goals, has not scored in eight games. … Vancouver has successfully killed 15 of 16 penalties over the past seven games. Dallas is 1 for 17 on the power play in the last seven. … The Canucks have won their three games over two seasons in Dallas by a combined score of 13-3.
UP NEXT
Canucks: At Chicago on Monday night to complete a two-day trip before a seven-game homestand.
Stars: Host Florida on Tuesday night in the third of a five-game homestand.
___
More AP NHL: www.apnews.com/NHL and www.twitter.com/AP_Sports
The Associated Press