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Stars hold off Canucks to win 6-3

DALLAS (AP) Erik Cole scored two goals, Kari Lehtonen made 43 saves and the Dallas Stars held off the Vancouver Canucks 6-3 on Tuesday night.

Dallas scored five goals on only 12 shots against Vancouver starting goalie Ryan Miller to drive him from the game just 1:17 into the second period. He entered the game with a 3-0-0 record and 1.95 goals against average.

Cole gave the Stars leads of 2-0 in the first period and 6-1 in the second. It was his first two-goal game since last New Year's Eve.

Lehtonen 43 saves were a season high, and six off his career high. Vancouver outshot the Stars 46-28.

Ryan Garbutt, Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn each had a goal and an assist for Dallas, and Shawn Horcoff assisted on both of Cole's goals.

Radim Vrbata, Zack Kassian and Jannik Hansen scored for the Canucks.

Garbutt scored the first goal at 4:08 of the first. He skated into the right faceoff circle and sent the puck off a defender and past Miller.

The Stars avoided power-play disaster when Lehtonen stopped Hansen on a short-handed breakaway. Dallas came back and took a 2-0 lead when Cole scored from the top of the slot at 17:46, with 9 seconds left on the power play.

Hansen later beat Lehtonen for a third-period goal.

The period ended 3-0 Dallas after Miller was entangled with a teammate and Tyler Seguin shot over the goalie at 19:17.

Lehtonen stopped all 12 Vancouver shots on goal in the first.

In a wide-open second period, the Stars outscored the Canucks 3-2. Vancouver trailed 6-2 despite outshooting Dallas 30-19 in the first two periods.

After Benn and Cody Eakin scored 29 seconds apart in the second, Vancouver coach Willie Desjardins replaced Miller with Eddie Lack. He made 15 saves over the final 38:43.

Vrbata scored the Canucks' first goal at 3:39, and then Cole came back with his second goal at 4:44. Vancouver moved within 6-2 at 13:55, when Kassian redirected Christopher Tanev's shot past Lehtonen.

The Stars won all three games between the teams last season and have outscored the Canucks 23-7 since their last loss to Vancouver on April 18, 2013.

Dallas won at home for the first time this season to improve to 1-0-2.

NOTES: Benn has 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in his last eight games against Vancouver. . Stars D Jamie Oleksiak played in place of Patrik Nemeth, who will miss the rest of this season following surgery to close a laceration on his right arm. . Desjardins coached Nemeth and won the AHL's Calder Cup last season with Dallas' top affiliate, the Texas Stars. Assistant coach Doug Lidster was on Desjardins' staff at Texas, and assistant Glen Gulutzan is a former Dallas head coach. . The line of Vrbata, Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin has totaled 21 points (7 goals, 14 assists) in the season's first four games.

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