Stars take lead in the West

The Dallas Stars took the lead in the Western Conference with a 5-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens Tuesday night at the American Airlines Center.

Adam Burish, Jamie Benn, Karlis Skrastins, Brad Richards, and Loui Eriksson all scored for Dallas, who had a 3-0 lead before the Canadiens ever got on the board.  “I thought our team played a really good skating game tonight,” Dallas coach Marc Crawford said. “That’s one of the quicker teams we’ve seen this year, and I thought our guys were very sharp early. I appreciated the quickness that we had tonight and I appreciated the skating legs everybody showed.”

Goalie Kari Lehtonen made 27 saves on the night.  “Kari was terrific tonight. I thought he was reading (the play) good. It was a rocket that beat him in the third period, but aside from that, he was really large tonight, and that gave us a lot of confidence”, said Crawford.

Eriksson’s goal was his 15th of the season and 100th of his career.  Richards leads the team with 16 goals on the season.

Dallas plays at home Thursday againts the Flames.