James Neal leads Penguins to win

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Playing against the team that traded him away nine months ago gave James Neal some extra motivation.

And when the Pittsburgh Penguins had two goals waved off that Neal believed should have counted, he became even more determined.

Neal scored two power-play goals, both seconds after the Penguins had goals disallowed, and carried Pittsburgh to a 3-1 win over the Dallas Stars on Friday night.

“Of course when you play your former team, you want to do well,” Neal said. “Especially with them doing so well and coming in here being a top team. It was a test for us and a test for them, and it feels good to be able to come out on top.”

The game matched the teams with the most points in their respective conferences. Pittsburgh is on top in the East, and Dallas leads the West.

Neal netted his 10th and 11th goals of the season to pull within one of the NHL lead, and Matt Cooke scored on a penalty shot in the third period as Pittsburgh won for the seventh time in nine games.

Eric Nystrom had a goal in his fifth consecutive game for Dallas, which had a four-game winning streak snapped.

There had been speculation that Penguins captain Sidney Crosby would make his season debut after being out since January because of a concussion, but he won’t return before Tuesday at the earliest.

Pittsburgh traded for Neal in February with the thought that he might fit on a line with Crosby, but he had only one goal in 20 games last season. Neal scored in the second and third periods.

“You could tell (Neal) was motivated,” Dallas captain Brendan Morrow said.

For the second consecutive home game — 15 days apart — the Penguins had a goal waved off. Late in the second period on Friday, Chris Kunitz was ruled to have gotten his stick up above the crossbar to deflect Evgeni Malkin’s shot.

“If it’s not a goal, you keep focused and go back out and do our job,” Kunitz said. “It’s part of the game.”

Fans were still booing that call 24 seconds later when Neal scored on a snap shot from the left circle that found its way between Kari Lehtonen’s right arm and torso. The puck trickled over the goal line before Stars defenseman Nicklas Grossman was able to swat it away.

“It’s a quick shot back to reality,” Neal said of the disallowed goal. “On the Jumbotron, both looked like good goals ... We did a great job sticking with it.”