DALLAS (AP) -- Dallas lost top regular-season scorer Joe Nieuwendyk to a first-period knee injury, but the Stars recovered to take the opener of their Western Conference playoff series 4-1 over the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday night.
Game 2 is Friday night in Dallas, where San Jose had won four straight regular-season games before Wednesday's defeat.
Nieuwendyk got the Stars' first goal only 2:22 into the game as Dallas scored twice in the opening three minutes. Nieuwendyk took a lead pass from Darryl Sydor, got behind the Sharks' defense for a breakaway and beat Mike Vernon with a wrist shot.
But with 4:02 left in the period, Nieuwendyk was knocked out of the game by San Jose defenseman Bryan Marchment's check. Nieuwendyk's condition will be further evaluated by Stars medical personnel on Thursday.
Nieuwendyk was ridden hard into the corner by Marchment, crashed into the boards and fell, clutching his right knee. He was helped off the ice by teammates.
No penalty was called on the play.
Earlier this season Marchment, then with the Edmonton Oilers, clipped Stars center Mike Modano on a knee-to-knee hit. Modano missed six weeks with a knee injury and Marchment was suspended for three games.
Nieuwendyk had 39 goals and 30 assists in the regular season.
Juha Lind made it 2-0 only 37 seconds after Nieuwendyk's goal when he knocked in the rebound of Modano's slap shot. Dallas scored on two of its first three shots.
But the Sharks answered at 12:40 when Owen Nolan scored on a slap shot from the top of the left circle.
Dallas pushed its lead to 3-1 at 3:30 of the second period on Derian Hatcher's power-play rebound.
Modano's empty-netter with 1.9 seconds left made it 4-1.
Stars goalie Ed Belfour stopped 21 shots.
#2 COLORADO AVALANCHE vs #7 EDMONTON OILERS
Boris Mironov scored with 5:09 remaining to cap a three-goal third period as the Edmonton Oilers survived a late flurry and surprised the Colorado Avalanche, 3-2, in the opener of their Western Conference quarterfinal series.
Bill Guerin and Dean McAmmond scored 80 seconds apart midway through the final period for Edmonton, which is bidding for another first-round upset. The Oilers defeated heavil favored Dallas in the opening round of last year's playoffs.
With the score tied, 2-2, Valeri Kamensky lost control of the puck behind his own net. Ryan Smyth picked it up, skated around the net and slid a pass past Avalanche defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh, who wristed a shot from the inside edge of the right faceoff circle past goaltender Patrick Roy.
Colorado unleashed a barrage of shots in the final 16 seconds at Edmonton's Curtis Joseph. Kamensky and Claude Lemieux each had shots from the right side and Ozolinsh and Adam Deadmarsh had two cracks apiece at the tying goal.
Joseph finished with 27 saves and won for the first time in six games against Colorado, which was 12-1-2 in the last 15 regular-season meetings with the Oilers.
Peter Forsberg had both goals for Colorado, which lost for the first time in 24 games (17-1-6) when Forsberg scores.
Game Two is Friday at Denver.
#3 DETROIT RED WINGS vs #6 PHOENIX COYOTES
DETROIT (AP) _ Detroit opened defense of its Stanley Cup championship in high gear Wednesday night as Joe Kocur scored two goals in the Red Wings' 6-3 win over the Phoenix Coyotes.
The Red Wings also got some payback on an old antagonist: Nikolai Khabibulin.
Detroit, hoping to become the first NHL team in six years to repeat as Cup champion, scored three times in the first 13 minutes and blew it open with three more goals in the second period.
Nicklas Lidstrom, Kocur and Sergei Fedorov scored first-period goals for the Red Wings, who ended 42 years of frustration by capturing the Cup in 1997. Darren McCarty, Kocur and Kirk Maltby scored in the second as the Red Wings chased Khabibulin, the goalie who caused them so much anguish in a first-round series two years ago.
Rick Tocchet scored in the first period, while Cliff Ronning and Bob Corkum scored in the third for the Coyotes, who haven't advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs since 1987, when they were the Winnipeg Jets.
Game 2 will be played Friday night at Joe Louis Arena. Action in the best-of-7 series then shifts to Phoenix for games Sunday and April 28.
Four key Detroit players _ Doug Brown, Brendan Shanahan, Kris Draper and Brent Gilchrist _ sat out with injuries, but clearly weren't needed.
Lidstrom's goal came at 5:31, eight seconds after Murray Baron was sent off for slashing Vyacheslav Kozlov, giving Detroit a two-man advantage. Lidstrom, at the top of the left circle, blasted it past Khabibulin low on the stick side.
Kocur never appeared to see the puck on his first goal. Martin Lapointe's shot hit Kocur's left skate and the puck deflected across the goal line. It was the first goal in 41 games for Kocur, who hadn't scored since Dec. 31.
Just 1:01 later, the Coyotes, who extended the Red Wings to six games in a first-round series that ended the franchise's run in Winnipeg two years ago, made it 2-1. Tocchet's shot from the left circle went between Chris Osgood's legs.
Fedorov, who missed Detroit's first 59 games because of a contract holdout this season, made it 3-1 when he knocked in a loose puck in front of the crease.
McCarty, whose spectacular goal finished Philadelphia in last year's finals and clinched the Cup, beat Khabibulin on the stick side at 13:16 of the second.
Kocur's second goal was no fluke. He took a pass between the circles from Lapointe and snapped it between Khabibulin's legs for a 5-1 lead.
Khabibulin, who had faced 22 shots to that point, was replaced by Jimmy Waite. But he fared no better.
Waite wandered to the right corner, then bumped into Phoenix defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky while trying to get back to the net. That gave Maltby an empty net and an easy goal with 9.7 seconds left in the second.
Osgood had no chance at 5:15 of the third when Ronning got the puck in front after some careless play by Detroit's defense.
Corkum made it 6-3 with 9:00 remaining.
Khabibulin gave the Red Wings fits in the 1996 playoffs. The series left the Red Wings so drained that they were eliminated in the second round by Colorado.
But, the Red Wings seemed to have broken his spell this season as they averaged 3.15 goals in five games against Khabibulin.
The Red Wings were 3-1-2 against Phoenix, and 3-0-2 against the Russian goalie.
The games' biggest hit came in the first period when Keith Tkachuk shouldered Kozlov into the boards behind the Phoenix goal. Kozlov, who apparently had the wind knocked out of him, was on his back for almost a minute.
#4 ST. LOUIS BLUES vs #5 L.A. KINGS
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Geoff Courtnall, known as a player who can get under an opponent's skin, frustrated an entire team this time.Courtnall set a team record with six points on a goal and five assists as the St. Louis Blues opened the playoffs with an 8-3 victory over the outmanned Los Angeles Kings on Thursday night. He said it's been a long time since he's had a game like this.
"I don't know. Peewee?" Courtnall said. "The game wasn't very easy, but the goals were easy. We got a lot of lucky bounces."
Mario Lemieux was the last player with six points in a postseason game. He did it in Pittsburgh's 6-4 victory over Washington on April 23, 1992.
Courtnall has never scored more than 80 points in a season and he led the Blues with a modest 31 goals this season. Throughout his career he's been valuable as a complementary player adept at drawing penalties.
But in 13 career playoff games against the Kings he has seven goals and 15 assists.
Besides breaking the points record by one, he also tied the franchise assist record set by Doug Gilmour in 1986 against Minnesota.
"He was hot," said teammate Jim Campbell, who had two goals off Courtnall assists. "Every time he touched it, someone put it in the net."
Pierre Turgeon and Pavol Demitra also each scored twice and Brett Hull had a goal and three assists for the Blues, who were 3-0-1 against Los Angeles in the regular season. The Blues never scored more than seven goals in the regular season, but took full advantage of the youthful Kings, in the playoffs for the first time in five years, by tying the team record for playoff scoring.
"They beat us in every phase of the game," Kings defenseman Rob Blake said. "We said we were going to shut the down in the neutral zone, we didn't do that.
"We said we were going to be disciplined, and we didn't do that. Everything we said we wanted to do, we never did."
The Blues have had eight goals twice in the playoffs, against Vancouver in 1995 and Winnipeg in 1982. They also tied a team record with four second-period goals, sending a sellout crowd of 20,120 into a towel-waving frenzy.
Game 2 is Saturday night in St. Louis. Following playoff tradition, neither team thought the opening rout would have an impact on the rest of the series.
"We can't expect it's going to be a cakewalk," Campbell said. "There are a bunch of great players over there and you know they're not going to lay down."
Kings coach Larry Robinson didn't appear too discouraged about the loss in his playoff coaching debut.
"Each game is a new day," Robinson said. "We all start back at square one."
Courtnall, who had two goals and three assists against the Kings in the regular season, was a big part of the Blues' quick start. He set up Demitra 1:42 into the game, then scored on a power play at 4:42.
He slid the puck across the crease to set up Turgeon's power-play goal that made it 3-1 in the second; got the second assist on Campbell's goal that made it 4-1; and made a nice backhand set-up from behind the net that Campbell finished off for a 5-1 lead.
The Blues beat the Kings 7-3 in the next-to-last game of the season, and this one was just like that meaningless game -- except for a lack of fights. That game was notable for its 156 penalty minutes, but Game 1 was fairly civil, considering the score.
Craig Johnson, Glen Murray and Luc Robitaille scored for the Kings, who trailed 8-1 early in the third period.
Kings goalie Stephane Fiset, who allowed 33 goals in his last nine starts, continued to struggle. Campbell's second goal of the second period chased Fiset, who allowed five goals on 27 shots, in favor of Jamie Storr.
Storr had no better luck on the first shot he faced. Turgeon finished a rush with a wraparound that made it 6-1 at 15:12 of the second, Hull scored at 16 seconds of the third and Demitra scored at 1:08.
Blues goalie Grant Fuhr won his 81st career playoff game, breaking a tie with Ken Dryden for third on the career list. He also had an assist.
Both teams continued trends from the end of the season. The Blues won nine of their last 12 to finish with 98 points, tied for fourth overall, while the Kings limped home 5-8.
