Star man Turco is the shining light as Dallas drown the Sharks

Martyn Turco bailed out the Dallas Stars last night by shining brightly between the posts as they held onto a 1-0 victory against San Jose Sharks.

The goaltender stopped 25 shots for his 26th career shutout and Mike Modano scored a power play goal before leaving with an injury as the Stars ended San Jose's season-high five-game winning streak.

"We hadn't been playing well and we had a depleted corps, so this was a big confidence builder for all of us," Turco said.

"It's all about the wins and giving the team a chance. The Sharks are a good team. We couldn't totally shut them down but we did a good job of limiting their chances."

The Edmonton Oilers had no problem making up for the absence of two of their three best forwards as they cruised to a 4-0 win over the Vancouver Canucks.

Daniel Tjarnqvist and Joffrey Lupul scored 34 seconds apart early in the second period and Dwayne Roloson made 36 saves in the victory.

Shawn Horcoff and Raffi Torres also scored and Petr Sykora added two assists as Edmonton won for the first time in four games despite missing offensive wingers Ryan Smith with a broken thumb and Ales Hemsky with a shoulder problem.

"When Smitty and Hemer go down it throws more minutes around for everybody and we have to find goals elsewhere," said Horcoff. "There s been a lot of talk about our offensive depth this season and tonight was a big test of it."

The Boston Bruins had to work a lot harder than they expected to finish off the Montreal Canadiens.

Bruins defenseman Brad Stuart scored his second goal of the third period with 1:42 remaining and Boston held off Montreal to chalk up a 6-5 triumph.

Stuart scored midway through the period to give the Bruins - who blew a 4-1 lead in the second section of play - a 5-4 advantage before Montreal's Sheldon Souray tied it moments later with his team-leading tenth goal on a power play.

"Coming in after the second period, we were all pretty upset with ourselves and it was a good thing that we had a little time to regroup," Stuart said. "We talked about things that we stopped doing that allowed them to come back and we tried to get back to doing those things."

Stuart restored the Bruins' lead at 18:18 with his fourth of the season. "You shoot the puck and good things happen," he added after Boston won for the fourth time in five games.