Stars' late flurry too much for Blue Jackets

Dallas scored three times to start the third period for a 5-3 victory.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Before Dallas put together a decisive three-goal flurry to start the third period, the Stars had to survive a first period dominated by Columbus.
Philippe Boucher and Stu Barnes each had two goals and Dallas killed seven penalties in the first 20 minutes to beat the Blue Jackets 5-3 on Wednesday night.
"The penalty-kill unit did a great job, and the guys who aren't doing penalty kill did a great job because they're sitting there for about 13 minutes and not getting out there," Barnes said. "When we did get back to 5-on-5, we did play well. That's huge, to have effort like that all the way through."
Columbus started quick
Johan Hedberg stopped 23 shots for the Stars. The Blue Jackets outshot Dallas 12-2 in the first.
"It was a weird first period," he said. "You kill it off, you feel good about it and you think it's going to give you some momentum. Then you have to kill off another one."
Trailing 3-2 heading into the period, the Stars pulled even on Boucher's second of the night and seventh of the season, then Barnes added his seventh and eighth goals to give Dallas a two-goal lead. The Stars scored on three of their first five shots in a span of 3:59.
"We talked about the importance of this game," Dallas coach Dave Tippett said of the final night of a six-game road trip. "Our trip would have ended 3-3 or 4-2. These are points that we desperately needed and I think our guys recognized that in the third period."
Mike Modano added a goal and an assist, Jason Arnott had three assists and Brenden Morrow and Sergei Zubov each had two assists. Boucher added an assist.
Nash scores for Blue Jackets
Rick Nash celebrated his selection to the Canadian Olympic team with his third goal in as many games for Columbus. Mike Rupp and Jaroslav Balastik also had goals for the Blue Jackets, who failed to score on eight power-play opportunities.
Just 53 seconds into the third period, Dallas pulled even on Boucher's one-timer from just inside the blue line. Barnes was unchecked at the goal mouth to score on his own rebound 44 seconds later, then scored again at the 4:52 mark when he was all alone for a tap-in from Morrow.
The Stars outshot Columbus 33-14 after the opening period, including 16-6 in the last period.
"We didn't show up in the third period," Nash said.
Nine seconds after their fourth power play of the opening period ended, the Blue Jackets took a 1-0 lead on Balastik's one-timer from Jan Hrdina.
"The penalty kill was huge and Johan was huge for us," said Boucher, who had missed the last six games with a broken finger. "We didn't help him out too much. That obviously wasn't the way we wanted to start. But we've been able to hang in on those games, especially on the road, and then come out on top most of the time."