Roope Hintz made his most important play Saturday from the least glamorous address on the ice. Working behind the San Jose net at 15:17 of the first period, the Dallas Stars center recovered the puck and fed Jamie Benn in the slot.
Benn’s shot beat Alex Nedeljkovic high to the far corner, giving Dallas a 2-1 lead and its only even-strength goal in a 4-3 victory.
That pass was the night’s clearest display of Hintz as a playmaker. Six minutes earlier, he had helped Dallas in a much more familiar fashion: arriving at the left side of the crease to finish a loose puck on a 4-on-3 power play. The first goal required alertness around a rebound.
The second required Hintz to turn a difficult location into a scoring chance for someone else.
Those were two valuable kinds of center play in one period. Hintz did not simply collect two points. He changed the shape of two possessions, one by completing a sequence around the net and one by beginning it from behind the net.
The power-play goal came at 9:16. Thomas Harley’s point attempt was redirected by Wyatt Johnston, and the puck came loose near the left post. Hintz was there to put it away. That finish helped Dallas answer Michael Misa’s opening goal, which had come after Macklin Celebrini advanced toward the net before passing across to the far post.
Hintz’s second contribution demanded more than arriving at the right moment. After gaining control below the goal line, he fed Benn in the slot. Benn put the shot into the high far corner, a clean finish created by a pass that came from an awkward angle.
Dallas did not need Hintz to force a spectacular attempt; it needed him to recognize where the chance was hiding.
The goal also gave Benn a night worth noting without turning the evening into a countdown ceremony. It was career point No. 999, all with Dallas, and it put the Stars ahead before Jason Robertson added another power-play goal at 16:51. Mikko Rantanen supplied the pass from the opposite circle, and Robertson snapped the puck over Nedeljkovic’s glove.
Dallas had a 3-1 lead less than two minutes after Benn’s finish.
Still, the Stars never earned the luxury of treating Hintz’s work as the entire explanation. Ivar Stenberg scored on a 2-on-1 at 2:47 of the second period, cutting the lead to 3-2. Then Thomas Harley restored the two-goal margin at 14:30 with a one-timer after Johnston fed him at the point.
San Jose answered that goal on a 5-on-3 at 17:02. Mason Marchment’s cross-crease pass found Will Smith at the back door, and Smith put the puck into the open net. The play mattered because it kept Dallas from converting a productive night on special teams into a comfortable one.
The Stars finished 3 for 5 on the power play, but the Sharks scored on one of six opportunities and stayed within a single goal for the final stretch.
