From left, Dan Hamhuis, Alex Burrows and Daniel Sedin of the Vancouver Canucks celebrate a goal against the Dallas Stars Thursday at American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. The Canucks won the game 4-3. Photograph by: Ronald Martinez, Getty Images , Vancouver Sun

DALLAS -- The defence most certainly did not rest Thursday for the Vancouver Canucks — it went on the offensive.

The Canucks got goals from defencemen Kevin Bieksa and Jason Garrison and Alex Burrows tipped in a shot by another defenceman, Alex Edler, as Vancouver snapped a three-game National Hockey League losing streak with a 4-3 win over the Dallas Stars at the American Airlines Center.

It was a bounce-back game that the Canucks’ defence sorely needed after being exposed by the Chicago Blackhawks two nights earlier.

“We pride ourselves on being really good defensively and we obviously gave up way too many chances against Chicago,” Bieksa said. “We looked at the film, we watched all the breakdowns and I thought we were a lot better tonight.”

But it was on offence where the Canuck defencemen really made their mark Thursday. When the Canucks are at their best, their defence is chipping in consistently on offence. Thursday’s game served as a perfect example of just that.

“You need that,” said Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault. “If you are going to score more than a couple of goals a game, it’s going to come on some nights from your third and fourth line and on some other nights it’s going to come from your back end. And tonight we got a big goal from Kevin, a couple of good shots from Jason that led to a goal and you need that if you expect to score more than a couple of goals in such a tough league.”

“I’ve said it before,” added Bieksa. “When we are getting goals and contributions from our defencemen we are a tough team to beat. We have got a lot of skill up front and when we chip in back there it takes some pressure off them and they can play their game.”

The Canucks won it with two quick goals early in the third period. Garrison scored his second of the season at the 2:32 mark when he beat Dallas goaltender Cristopher Nilstorp from the left point to give Vancouver a 3-2 lead. Less than two minutes later, captain Henrik Sedin finished off a two-on-one rush with Burrows to put the Canucks up by two goals.

This time they hung on to the lead. But just barely.

Dallas captain Brenden Morrow stripped the puck off Vancouver centre Ryan Kesler at the edge of the crease and scored to make it 4-3 at 6:07 of the third. The Canucks had to weather some anxious moments down the stretch.

The win was a payback of sorts for the Canucks. Last Friday, the Stars came from two goals down and beat Vancouver 4-3 at Rogers Arena.

“It was nice to sort of return the favour and come back a couple of times against them in their building,” said Vancouver goalie Cory Schneider, who faced 25 Dallas shots.

The game could not have started any worse for the Canucks. They had a horrible shift to open the contest and paid for it. Victoria native Jamie Benn gave Dallas a 1-0 lead 35 seconds into the game, beating Schneider short side from a sharp angle.