(My Sportsbook) - Thursday's game between the Dallas Stars and Calgary Flames wasn't the prettiest you'll see, but the Stars were able to come away with the all-important "tie on the road" as they began a Western Canadian trip.

Jere Lehtinen scored with 2:49 left in regulation to knot the tilt and force overtime, after both the Stars and Flames coughed up third-period leads. Dallas held a 2-1 edge after Mike Modano tallied late in the second, but the Flames' Chris Clark and Craig Conroy each scored during a 1:53 span of the final frame.

"We'll take the point," head coach Dave Tippett told the Dallas Morning News. "It wasn't for a lack of trying. It looked like we were sluggish out there. You have games like that where it seems like everything is hard to do. If you look at it, we probably didn't deserve to have a lead going into the third."

Goaltender Ron Tugnutt, to some surprise, made his second consecutive start between the pipes after the veteran was instrumental in the Stars' 5-2 over Washington on Sunday. Tugnutt, who highlighted the strong showing with a glove stop on a labeled slapper by rookie Jordan Leopold late in the third, finished with 39 saves.

Tugnutt helped Dallas improve to 4-2-2 on the young season, which is good for first place in the Pacific Division standings. Tippett said the decision to start Tugnutt over Marty Turco in back-to-back games was simply based on who was hot.

"This is no different than we talked about early on," the rookie coach said. "If we have a guy that we think is the hot goaltender, we're going to use him. Tugger played very well last game [against Washington]. At some point on this road trip, you're going to see both of them anyway, so we decided to put Tugger back in."

Turco told the Morning News that he has no problem splitting time with Tugnutt. He probably shouldn't feel threatened anyway, because he has played extremely well in his five appearances, with a 1.78 goals-against average and .934 save-percentage.

"There'll never be a quarrel in here," Turco said. "Actually, I'm pretty excited. I know Ron is excited to play again. Not only are we partners, but we're good friends. We talked about it. We will be cheering each other on because we want to win. We know it's a great opportunity here in Dallas."

Thursday night's tie at the Saddledome also included yet another goal by winger Rob DiMaio, who paced Sunday's victory over Washington with a pair of tallies. The well-traveled veteran now shares the team lead with Bill Guerin, who makes roughly $8.2 million more than him per season.

UP NEXT

The Stars resume their current venture on Saturday in Vancouver, and wrap things up two nights later in Edmonton.