Stars beat Blue Jackets in shootout

Jussi Jokinen already proved to be a shootout success story. Now he's showing off another move.

Jokinen scored in regulation and had the only shootout goal to give the Dallas Stars a 3-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday night before the smallest crowd to watch an NHL game at Nationwide Arena.

"I never know what he's going to do," Dallas goaltender Mike Smith said of Jokinen's shootout repertoire. "When he dreams at night, he dreams of what he's going to do in a shootout."

Jokinen, who tied it 1-1 early in the first period, was the second skater during the shootout. He beat Fredrik Norrena with a deke and a backhander, scoring his 16th shootout goal in 26 career NHL tries.

"I have added a couple of moves the last couple of years. That move was pretty new," Jokinen said with a grin. "I have one more new move, so I think I have four or five moves now. I pick the right one based on whatever goalie there is. Confidence is still the biggest thing right now."

Rick Nash, who scored the Blue Jackets' first goal, went last in the shootout and tried a quick shot between Smith's leg pads but had his drive blocked.

The crowd of 11,820 was the smallest announced attendance for a Blue Jackets regular-season home game.

In other NHL games Wednesday night, it was: New Jersey 5, Pittsburgh 4; St. Louis 3, Chicago 1; and Anaheim 3, Nashville 1.

The Stars forced overtime when Brenden Morrow converted a one-timer from the high slot with 1:11 remaining — seconds after Dallas pulled Smith for an extra attacker. Mike Ribeiro set up behind the net and waited before saucering a pass to Morrow for his third of the season.

"Our guys stayed with it," coach Dave Tippett said. "They talked about before the game they wanted to find a way to win. They found a way to win."

After Nash and Jokinen traded goals in a 95-second span of the first period, the Blue Jackets took a 2-1 lead at 8:24 of the third period on Jiri Novotny's diving jam shot after his first shot hit the post. Nikolai Zherdev dug the puck off the boards and passed to Nash, who backhanded a centering pass that Novotny was able to push toward the goal, going off the far post. Novotny, a free-agent acquisition, then dived between two Stars, extending his stick to poke the puck into the goal for his first goal for Columbus.

Nash had a goal and an assist for the Blue Jackets, and Zherdev had two assists.

"We didn't put the hammer down and we paid for it in the end," Columbus coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We hd a chance numerous times in the first half of the game. When you have a 2-1 lead and are given odd-man rushes, you have to score and that's what we didn't do. It came back to haunt us."

Smith finished with 33 saves, Norrena stopped 28 shots.

"We were going through some struggles," Smith said. "Tonight was a big one for our team. It was nice to come from behind and get two points."

Devils 5, Penguins 4

Arron Asham's tiebreaking goal with 9:22 left gave visiting New Jersey the win.

Asham scored on a tap-in from just to the left of the net off a pass from Zach Parise, who had three assists. Travis Zajac had two goals, and Jay Pandolfo, John Madden and David Clarkson each had two points for the Devils, who scored 11 goals in two games after netting only seven in their first four.

Sergei Gonchar had a goal and two assists, and Evgeni Malkin and Gary Roberts added a goal and assist each for the Penguins.

Blues 3, Blackhawks 1

Keith Tkachuk had a goal and an assist, and Manny Legace stopped 28 shots to lift visiting St. Louis to its fourth straight win.

Paul Kariya and Bryce Salvador also scored for the Blues (4-1), who got two assists from Brad Boyes.

St. Louis, which entered 2-for-21 on the power play, converted two of three attempts against the Blackhawks.

Jason Williams scored Chicago's lone goal, a fluke power-play score that stood up to a video review. Nikolai Khabibulin made 23 saves for the Blackhawks (3-3).

Ducks 3, Predators 1

Petteri Wirtanen, the last player cut by host Anaheim after training camp, scored the go-ahead goal 4:47 into the third period of his NHL debut.

Drew Miller also scored his first goal in his third NHL game, Corey Perry connected in the final minute of the first period and Jean-Sebastien Giguere made 28 saves in his second start of an injury-delayed season.

Ryan Suter tied it 2:24 into the third for Nashville.

The Predators have lost 10 of 12 games at Anaheim. The other two were overtime victories.