Brock Boeser and Jack Rathbone scored second-period goals, and visiting Vancouver netted three unanswered times as the Canucks swept the season series from the Dallas Stars, 3-1, on Saturday night.
Boeser broke a 1-all tie early in the frame while Rathbone padded his lead with his first goal so far for Vancouver (33-34-5, 71 points).
The Canucks improved to 9-2-0 in its past 11 matches and won for the sixth straight time over Dallas.
Dakota Joshua notched a short-handed marker, and goaltender Thatcher Demko stopped 25 of 26 shots and moved to 6-0-0 in his career against the Stars.
In winning all three head-to-head matches, the Canucks outscored Dallas 13-7 and are the only Western Conference side the Texas team didn’t beat in the 2022-23 campaign.
Dallas (39-20-14, 92 points) closed out its three-game homestand (1-1-1) by getting a lone goal from Ryan Suter and is 0-5-1 in its past six games against the Canucks.
In his third career start and first at home, goalie Matt Murray made 21 saves.
Miro Heiskanen’s 12-game point streak — a Stars franchise-record for a defenseman — came to an end.
Starting a 10-game run to the end of the regular season, the Stars took a 1-0 lead at 11:28 after each side failed on early power-play opportunities.
In just his second game back following a cut on his leg, Tyler Seguin worked behind Demko’s net and fired a pass up top to Suter. The defenseman then deposited his third goal this season and second in March.
But on the Stars’ second power play, Joshua filled the slot and beat Murray with 1:36 left in the period for the short-handed tally, his 11th goal this season.
It was Vancouver’s NHL-leading 14th for the club’s 32nd-ranked penalty-kill unit.
Inside the opening six minutes of the second period, the Canucks used that momentum to score twice as they clearly demonstrated better play against the Central Division’s second-place team.
Boeser gave Vancouver its first lead by spearheading an odd-man breakout then hitting the back of the net for the 14th time from the right circle at 3:57.
In just his seventh game this campaign, Rathbone took advantage of a pair of slick feeds from Elias Pettersson and Andrei Kuzmenko to tally his second career goal at 5:30 for a 3-1 lead.
–Field Level Media
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