DALLAS (AP) - Ben Bishop hasn’t had a lot of room for error when he shuts out opponents this season.
Bishop made 28 saves for his 28th career shutout, John Klingberg scored a second-period goal and the Dallas Stars beat the New York Rangers 1-0 Tuesday.
Dallas won its third straight and moved one point ahead of Minnesota in the race for the first wild card in the Western Conference.
Three of Bishop’s four shutouts this season have been by a 1-0 score. His other shutout was a less-stressful 2-0 win.
“Didn’t know that. Maybe we should start scoring less goals,” Bishop joked. “That’s just the way it’s worked out.”
Bishop also entered the third period with a 1-0 lead in a win Saturday at St. Louis.
“Our goalies have been instrumental throughout the whole process,” Stars coach Jim Montgomery said. “I don’t think (Bishop) had as hard a night as he had on others, but he managed the traffic in front of him really well.”
Klingberg provided the offense 1:16 into the second period. He took a cross-ice pass from Miro Heiskanen at the blue line, skated to the top of the right circle and sent a wrist shot into the net off the left post.
“Post in, that’s nice because it’s usually post out,” Klingberg said. “Miro made a great play. I talked to him. I was open. I got the puck on my tape. I saw someone screened the goalie really good.”
Rangers goalie Alexandar Georgiev said he saw the shot coming.
“But I didn’t see how it went in. There was a lot of traffic in front of me, so I tried to just move into the direction the puck was going and block it.”
Georgiev had 31 saves for New York, which hasn’t won in five games.
The game ended two seconds after a scrum in front of Bishop that resulted in 24 minutes in penalties, 20 against the Rangers. Ryan Strome had a cross-checking penalty and a game misconduct.
“Strome absolutely crushed (the Stars’ Jason Dickinson) into me.” Bishop said. “It’s one of those where we don’t play them the rest of this year, but we’ll remember it next year.”
The Rangers had only one minor penalty in the first two periods but racked up 35 minutes and killed four Dallas power plays in the third period. Mika Zibanejad received a major penalty for boarding and a game misconduct when he knocked the Stars’ Radek Faksa out of the game midway through the third.
“The linesman called it and he felt that (Zibanejad) hit (Faksa) in the head,” Rangers coach David Quinn said. “That was the call, that was the explanation I got, and we had to kill a five-minute major.”
The goalies had 11 saves each in the first period.
Georgiev had more difficult chances in the first. He stopped Faksa on a breakaway and gloved Jamie Benn’s shot from the top of the left circle off a faceoff.
Bishop’s best was at 17:40 on Vladislav Nemestnikov’s shot as he skated down the slot.
Dallas killed three penalties in the first two periods. On the third, Zibanejad hit the crossbar behind Bishop.
The Stars’ first power play followed. It was Tyler Seguin’s turn to send a shot off a post.
New York killed a 5-on-3 power play in the third. With the Rangers still down a man, they nearly scored short-handed on a 2-on-1 break, but Brady Skjei shot wide right.
NOTES: Klingberg has goals in consecutive games for the first time since a three-game streak from Oct. 9-15. He has nine goals, one more than last season’s total. … Dallas coach Jim Montgomery scratched RW Alexander Radulov after he arrived late for the morning skate. Radulov had been benched for part of a period earlier this season. … Rangers C Mika Zibanejad received a 5-minute major for boarding and a game misconduct when he knocked Stars C Radek Faksa from the game midway through the third period. … The Rangers entered the game with equal numbers of wins and losses in all games, against both the Eastern and the Western conferences and against each Western division. Georgiev’s record coming in was 10-10-2.
UP NEXT
Rangers: Finish a two-game trip on Thursday at Detroit.
Stars: Play Colorado on Thursday in the second of a three-game homestand.
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