SAN JOSE, Calif. – They're like chocolate and peanut butter, Mike Ribeiro and Brenden Morrow.

So different, and yet so good together.

That was never more clear Saturday than on two goals that pretty much define the Stars' two scoring leaders. Morrow (12 goals, 20 assists, 32 points) scored his after a battle behind the goal forced the puck to pop over the net and into the crease. He then battled to the front of the net and hammered home a rebound with a few relentless pokes at San Jose goalie Evgeni Nabokov.

"I'd love to give a different story for people who didn't see it, but it was pretty ugly," Morrow said. "I saw it the whole time. I was hoping it was going to hit him in the back and roll down his back and into the goal."

Such is the way of Morrow's goals – a combination of hard work and a little hope.

Ribeiro's? Well, the crafty center iceman reached into a pile in front of the goal on a power play, pulled the puck to himself between the legs of defender Kyle McLaren, recovered with the puck behind the goal line and then brought it back in front of the net and scored while everyone was scrambling to get to him.

"That Ribeiro goal ... people don't realize the patience and poise it takes to score that goal," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "Where you have to basically dig beneath a foot or leg in the crease, it goes behind the net and you bring it back out and score. That's poise right there."

Morrow has always joked that he can't score from farther than five feet away from the net, and now he's dragging Ribeiro (16 goals, 17 assists, 33 points) in there with him.

Ribeiro has five goals in the last four games, all of them from the doorstep. But Ribeiro said it's easy for him to get inside, as long as Morrow is there.

"There's no one really there to check me once they're focused on Brenden," Ribeiro said.

Stars match Sharks' physicality: San Jose won the battle of hits on the stat sheet, getting credit for 26 hits to the Stars' 14, but Stars coach Dave Tippett said he was pleased with how his team stood up to the Sharks.

"They're a big, strong team," Tippett said. "We're certainly not as big as they are, but we didn't back down. We competed in all of the battles, and that's all you can ask for."

Briefly: Sergei Zubov had two assists and now has a goal and eight assists in the last four games. He leads all NHL defensemen in scoring with 32 points. ... Dallas' all-time record in San Jose is 25-13-2, including a run of five straight. ... Dallas once again allowed the first goal of the game. That's 17 times this season. Yet the Stars have a league-best 9-7-1 mark when allowing the first goal. ... Dallas is now 4-for-11 on 5-on-3 power play opportunities this season, scoring on their one chance Saturday. ... Brad Winchester and Krys Barch were healthy scratches. ... Mike Modano played 22:14 (a team-high for forwards) and won 11-of-20 face-offs (55 percent). Without Modano, the Stars won 38.7 percent of their draws. ... Dallas has scored power-play goals in four straight games, and the power play is 6-for-16 in that span (37.5 percent).