Brenden Morrow, Adam Pardy and Michael Ryder scored first-period goals to send the Dallas Stars to a 6-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night in the preseason opener for both teams.
Krys Barch put Dallas up 4-0 when he beat Carey Price 4:04 into the second. Mike Ribeiro scored the Stars' second power-play goal on Nathan Lawson at 16:24, ending a run of three straight Montreal scores. Matt Fraser scored late in the third.
Dallas' Tyler Beskorowany stopped the six shots he faced after replacing Andrew Raycroft 10:14 into the second.
Morrow, who opened the scoring 3:12 in, left in the third period and did not return.
''I just had a little tweak in my knee and I thought I'd give it a little break before it got any worse,'' Morrow said. ''More a precaution than anything, day to day.''
Erik Cole got his first Canadiens goal, Andrei Kostitsyn scored with the man-advantage and former Dallas defenseman Jeff Woywitka beat Raycroft before both teams changed goalies midway through the second.
''It was good to get a spark and get things going,'' said Cole, who left Carolina for an $18 million, four-year free-agent deal with Montreal. ''I'll definitely be looking forward to more games and certainly to opening night here.''
In addition to new plexiglass around the Bell Centre ice, enhanced safety measures included curved glass panels at the end of each team's bench and a repositioned stanchion at the other end of the visiting team's bench.
Seen countless times in video replays of Boston captain Zdeno Chara's devastating hit on Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty in March, the padded stanchion has been moved back 18 inches from the top of the boards. It also now supports only one pane of glass perpendicular to the ice boards, with another pane previously in front of the Canadiens backup goalie now removed.
''It went from the probably the hardest, most dangerous glass in the league to the softest, most absorbable boards, and as a player it means a lot,'' Canadiens left wing Michael Cammalleri said. ''I thought they did a great job.''
