Jason Robertson scored two times, and Jamie Benn had a goal and two assists to lead the Stars to a 7-2 victory over the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday. Scott Wedgewood made 28 saves.
The Stars (7-3-1) have won three of their last four games.
“I liked our game,” Peter DeBoer, Dallas coach, told NHL.com. “We came out ready to play, and we got rewarded for it early. Then we did enough the rest of the way to get the two points.”
Karel Vejmelka made 22 saves for the Coyotes (3-6-1) in the loss after Connor Ingram allowed three goals on ten shots.
“They scored on the second shift, and then it’s boom, boom, boom, boom, and it’s 4-0. And it’s hard to come back in this league when it’s 4-0 in the first,” Coyote Lawson Crouse said.
At the 1:27 mark in the first period, Denis Gurianov scored from the slot to make it 1-0. The Stars scored the first goal of a game for the ninth time in 11 attempts this season.
“The first shot of the night goes in, and obviously, it gets the boys going,” Wedgewood said. “We started great, and throughout the whole game, we kept them in their end.”
Wyatt Johnston scored unassisted at 3:54 after intercepting Dysin Mayo’s breakaway pass. Johnston is the first rookie in Stars/Minnesota North Stars history to score a goal in three straight road games.
At the 11:18 mark, Ty Dellandrea tipped in a wrist shot from Colin Miller for the team’s third goal of the game.
Robertson made it 4-0 at 18:30 after Roope Hintz fed the puck to Joe Pavelski, who found Robertson alone in the right circle.
“All four guys are battling, working, and he’s just kind of standing off to the side, and the puck bounces right to him,” DeBoer said of Robertson. “He’s got those type of instincts. You don’t teach that; that’s pretty special.”
At 15:14 of the second period, Robertson scored on a power play to make it 5-0. During a four-game goal streak, he has five goals.
Benn scored goal number six 27 seconds into the third period after intercepting Vejmelka’s clearing attempt.
At 5:07, Juuso Valimaki scored, putting the Coyotes on the board and bringing the score to 6-1. Lawson Crouse followed up with a goal at 9:06 to make it 6-2.
Jani Hakanpaa scored the game’s final goal at 15:45, bringing the final score to 7-2. Dallas is now 5-1-1 in its last seven games against Arizona and 14-2-1 in its previous 17.
“That’s how you’ve got to come out on the road,” Dellandrea said. “We’ve got to get good at doing that every night.”
Wedgewood was playing in place of Jake Oettinger, who is out with a lower-body injury and is expected back within the next week.
The Stars had 10 players with at least one point in the first period. Roope Hintz of Dallas has seven points (three goals, four assists) in a four-game point streak. Gurianov’s goal was his first since March 22, according to NHL.com.
