COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Loui Eriksson said the game was no work of art — unless you can mold a masterpiece out of hard work, muscle and grit.
Eriksson fought off two defenders to get his stick on a rebound and jammed it in 3:03 into overtime to give the Dallas Stars a 5-4 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday night.
"It wasn't the prettiest game," Eriksson said. "But we'll take the two points and move forward."
Eriksson was being held back by a pair of Blue Jackets but reached for the puck as he was falling. Before collapsing on the ice, he whipped it past goalie Sergei Bobrovsky for the winner.
Cody Eakin had given the Stars a 4-3 lead with 6:24 left in regulation when his shot from the right wing handcuffed Bobrovsky, the puck trickling through his leg pads and across the goal line.
But the Blue Jackets once again tied it — for the fourth time — when Nick Foligno tossed a hard pass from the left short boards to R.J. Umberger, who scored from the right hash with just 1:34 remaining to force overtime.
"That was a back-and-forth game, like a ping-pong game," said Dallas' Antoine Roussel, who like Eakin and Derek Roy had an assist to go with his goal.
Brenden Morrow also scored, and Stephane Robidas and Brenden Dillon each had two assists for the Stars, who had lost three of four coming in.
"I thought we had some jump tonight," coach Glen Gulutzan said. "We limited their chances. The four goals (surrendered) we didn't like, but the shots were 39-20. We played a good road game."
It was a rare second-night win for the Stars. They came in just 1-15-2 in the second game of their past 18 back-to-backs dating to last season.
"I'm sure you'll keep bringing that up," Gulutzan half-joked with reporters. "It wasn't easy. That is a hard-working (Columbus) team. It was good to win."
Cam Atkinson, Nikita Nikitin and Derek Dorsett also had goals for Columbus, which opened a stretch with 10 of the next 12 games coming at home. But the Blue Jackets still ran out of comebacks to lose their third in a row overall and sixth in seven games.
"We kept coming. I don't think that's ever been a question about this team this year," Umberger said. "The problem is we're just playing from behind too much. It's hard to play catch-up. But when we do get down, we're not quitting and that's a positive."
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