The third game of a road three-in-four is always a grueling proposition for a team, especially when the first two games resulted in frustrating regulation losses. To their credit, the Dallas Stars bounced back from losses in Colorado on Tuesday and Edmonton on Thursday to grit out a 2-1 regulation victory over the Calgary Flames on Friday night.

Entering the game in Calgary, one of the biggest keys to victory figured to whether Dallas could exploit a potential advantage on special teams. The Stars came in a on a 19-for-19 run on the penalty kill over the past six games while the Flames had been torched for six opposition power play goals over their previous four games.

As it turned out, superior special teams and a strong goaltending performance by Kari Lehtonen (29 saves on 30 shots) made the difference for Dallas. The Stars went 2-for-3 on the power play and 2-for-2 on the penalty kill.

Esa Lindell (third) and Alexander Radulov (power play) notched goals for Dallas. Johnny Gaudreau tallied the lone Calgary goal. Mike Smith made 22 saves in a losing cause for the Flames.

The game was scoreless for the first 30 minutes. Finally, at 10:18 of the second period, the Flames triggered a counterattacking 2-on-1 rush on a puck Dallas could not hold in the offensive zone. Gaudreau carried the mail and elected to shoot from the right circle, catching the high short side over Lehtonen for his third goal of the season. Micheal Ferland and Sean Monahan got the assists.

Dallas' second PP unit got the goal back on the power play at 16:54. Jason Spezza saucered a pass out to Lindell at the point, and Lindell hammered a shot through traffic to knot the game at 1-1. Mattias Janmark earned the secondary helper.

The 1-1 tie held until 12:50 of the third period, as Radulov sniped a goal from the right side off pass from Devin Shore. John Klingberg earned the secondary assist.

Calgary had some scoring chances late with a chance to tie but Dallas blocked several shots in the waning minutes. Tyler Seguin won the final faceoff cleanly to kill off the rest of the clock.

The Stars (6-5-0) return to action as the Western Canada portion of the five-game road trip continues after having Saturday and Sunday nights off. Dallas will visit the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night in the Stars' final October game and then head off to Manitoba to take on the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday.

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