More photos » Carlos Osorio - AP

Brad May and Krystofer Barch fight in the second period. It was the fifth fight between the two in the past three seasons.

Browse more photos »

You know it's not your night when a goal is disallowed because of a whistle that blew a full second after the puck went into the net.

Brad May's third-period shot sat in the net, but Dennis LaRue ruled that the whistle intended to blow prior to the puck. Instead of a tie game, it remained 2-1, and the Stars put one more goal on the board to end the Detroit Red Wings three-game winning streak.

Alex Auld stopped 32 of 33 shots for Dallas, who played a solid game tonight, taking advantage by going 2-for-5 with the man advantage.

The Stars jumped out to the lead with a Mike Ribero goal that was intended to be a crossing pass. Instead, Jonathan Ericsson, who was on his stomach, swung his stick back, only to deflect the puck past Jimmy Howard.

Just under four minutes into the second period,  Matt Niskanen took a pass from Brad Richards and fired a knuckle shot that Howard couldn't react to, to make it 2-0.

But a couple minutes later, Henrik Zetterberg kept his torrid pace going, as Ville Leino's pass set him up and with Richards draped over him, Zetterburg buried it to cut the lead to one.

Between those two goals, May and Krystofer Barch got together for a doozy of a fight: their fifth fight in the past three years. The two of them put on a show that included switching hands mid-fight when they both became tired. In fact, May appeared to deliberately change helmets just before the fight, going from one with a visor to one without.

With 13:36 left in the third, Detroit brought the puck out from behind the net. Justin Abdelkader passed the puck to May. May put a backhand shot from about 10 feet out onto Auld, who drew a whistle with a stop. But Auld hadn't stopped it: he trapped it against the side of the net with the puck very clearly over the line. The Red Wings celebrated as if they had scored a goal.

However, Dennis LaRue ruled that he intended to blow the whistle when the Auld made the stop, marking the play dead. Despite a call from the NHL Operations Center in Toronto, LaRue stuck to his ruling, and the goal did not count.

A few minutes later, with Jonathan Ericsson in the penalty box, Loui Eriksson took a pass from James Neal in front of the net. Howard was overcommitted to the play near Eriksson, and couldn't skate over in time to make the stop.

Howard would end up making 29 saves. The Wings play next on Friday against the Florida Panthers.

Player of the Game: Henrik Zetterberg. And we'll keep making him the player of the game until informed otherwise.