Dallas Stars ride two late goals from Alexander Radulov and comeback in the third period to defeat the St. Louis Blues 4-2 at home.

The Blues’ struggles continue as they now move to 2-7 over the past 9 games and have seen the majority of their rough play come on the attack. The lack of goal-scoring has hindered a potential force in the Central and when they have seen scores, they have blown late leads as well.

Throughout the first two periods, it appeared as if the back-lines and goalkeepers were going to the headline during this chapter in the rivalry. However, the Stars finally broke the scoreless-tie off the Mattias Janmark tip-in (8).

It took the St. Louis front line 32 shots to solve Stars’ Goalie Ben Bishop. However, in the third period, the Blues scored off an unassisted wrister from Vladimir Tarasenko (16) with 16:34 remaining. After another minute of game-play, the Blues struck again on the shot from Tage Thompson (2) to take a 2-1 lead in the third period.

Dallas then returned with ten minutes of a blitz to try and tie things up. This stretch came to fruition with an unassisted Jamie Benn backhand (16) to tie it at 2-2 with less than five minutes remaining in regulation.

Then in dramatic fashion, ‘big-game player’ Alexander Radulov struck once with 2:21 left, then again with an empty net sprint to seal it with 1:39 remaining.

Radulov stepped up with his 13^th and 14^th goals of the season and pushed the Stars to a 4-2 win and the first win over St. Louis in three tries this year.

Ben Bishop was a huge reason the Stars finished with the win, making 27 saves on 29 shots including a perfect 6-6 mark on the penalty kill to help ensure the Blues finished 0/4 on the power-play.

This is the second time in December that St. Louis has seen a lead in the final period evaporate into a loss in regulation.

As for the Stars, this is a win that a team that has been walking the line between out of the playoff and being a legitimate threat can really build off of. The win puts Dallas at

Stars pull within three points of St. Louis in the Central division as they continue to eye that third-place spot. The Stars will take the ice next on New Year’s Eve against the San Jose Sharks who sit just one spot below them in the Western Conference standings.

Faceoff is set for 7pm CT.

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