1. Steve Ott, Stars: Stirred the pot, made the Stars engage in an emotional game and scored an important goal.

2. Stu Barnes, Stars: Scrappy work in 19:22 of ice time. He really is ramping up for the playoffs

3. Brenden Morrow, Stars: Captain had two solid assists and overall strong play. Led forwards with 23:20 in ice time.

1st: The game started to unravel quickly when Krys Barch, Brad Winchester, Kyle McLaren and Jody Shelley were involved in fisticuffs six minutes in. Then, Joe Thornton took exception to a Steve Ott hit and rang up 19 minutes of penalties. By the end of the period, Dallas (46) and San Jose (57) had set season highs for penalty minutes in a game. Patrick Marleau scored on a 5-on-3 power play for the Sharks.

San Jose 1, Stars 0

2nd: The shenanigans continued, as Shelley was ejected for trying to beat up Ott. The teams started scoring more, though, too. San Jose took a 2-0 lead when Jonathan Cheechoo danced around Mattias Norstrom, but Dallas came back with a goal from Antti Miettinen off two great passes from Mike Modano and Brenden Morrow. Stu Barnes then drove the net to tie it, and Mattias Norstrom put the Stars ahead off the rush on a pretty pass from Toby Petersen with 13 seconds left.

Stars 3, San Jose 2

3rd: Marty Turco faced nine shots in the period and came up with some big saves to protect a one-goal lead. Ott then tallied his 11th goal of the season when he skated in on the right wing and blasted a slap shot by Brian Boucher to make it 4-2.

Stars 4, San Jose 2