KINGS ALMOST BLANKED; BELFOUR'S BLOCKS HELP STARS WIN : DALLAS 4, KINGS 1.

Byline: Associated Press

Ed Belfour's play has been stellar for the Dallas Stars during their latest streak, but the goalie has had plenty of help from his new teammates. Mike Modano had two goals and an assist and Belfour made 24 saves as the Stars beat the Kings 4-1 Wednesday night.

``The guys are playing well at both ends and I've felt great. I'm seeing the puck well, making some good saves, communicating well,'' said Belfour, who signed a three-year, $10 million free agent deal in the offseason. ``Right now we're all in a real good groove.''

Modano's line backed Belfour with a 2-0, first-period lead. Modano, who started the night as the NHL's scoring leader, improved to 34 points, and linemates Jamie Langenbrunner and Jere Lehtinen had a goal and an assist each.

``Everybody's solid, everybody's contributing,'' said Modano after scoring his 12th and 13th goals. ``We're playing a good team game. It takes 22 guys to play well and win in this league.''

Kings coach Larry Robinson said his team needed to be more physical to keep up with the Stars.

``We talked about playing aggressively, but we weren't as physical as we wanted to be,'' Robinson said. ``They (the Stars) go to the net hard. They're a very physically strong team committed to the kind of game they want to play.''

Belfour fell less than six minutes short in his bid for the longest shutout streak in franchise history, but he boosted his record to 13-4-4. Belfour had registered shutouts in his two previous games and took a career-high streak of 160 scoreless minutes into Wednesday night, then blanked the Kings in the first period.

But Vladimir Tsyplakov's sixth goal from point-blank range at 3:14 of the second period trimmed Dallas' lead to 2-1. That halted Belfour's string at 183 minutes and 14 seconds, 5:24 short of Cesare Maniago's franchise record set from Dec. 13-16, 1967. Belfour already has six shutouts to tie Maniago's franchise mark set in 1967-68.

Belfour claimed he was unaware of the record, although he did admit he knew he brought a personal high for consecutive shutout minutes into the game. At least Belfour broke a sweat against the Kings. In Monday night's 5-0 shutout of Anaheim, Belfour had to make only 13 saves.

``Tonight he got some action and ran into some traffic,'' Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said. ``He was solid when he had to be. They (the Kings) look for rebounds off the rush and there weren't too many tonight.''

Los Angeles was 6-2-0 in its last eight games entering Wednesday. The Stars are 6-1-1 in their last eight and improved to 36 points, keeping them even with the Detroit Red Wings for the NHL's top record.

Langenbrunner got the Stars going with his 10th goal at 3:48 of the first period, knocking a rebound past Kings goalie Stephane Fiset.