With under a minute to go, Roope Hintz scored his second goal of the game to give Dallas a hard-fought 3-2 win over the Predators in Music City on Wednesday night.
Jamie Benn had an assist on the play, giving the Dallas captain two points on the night as Dallas ran their overall record to 21-9-6 and 3-0 against division foe Nashville this season.
The Stars went a measly 1-for-6 on the power play before the third period. Dallas got just five shots off on the power play, getting a single shot during their final power play of the game.
WHAT TO KNOW
Only 89 seconds after the Stars’ Christmas break officially ended following the night’s opening puck drop, Benn’s wrist shot got past Predators goaltender Juuse Saros for a quick 1-0 advantage.
Benn came charging off the bench on the play, swiped the puck from a tangle of Nashville players near the blue line, and knocked home the unassisted goal.
The second period was a seesaw-scoring spree.
Hintz scored his 17th goal of the season with help from Jason Robertson and Miro Heiskanen. However, it came in between two Nashville goals by Filip Forsberg and Yakov Trenin to tie the game at 2-2.
The latter of the two goals came shorthanded for the Predators, which is only the second time Dallas has allowed a goal during a power play this season.
Hintz’s goal late in the third pushed Dallas to the 3-2 win. His goal was his 10th for December.
BY THE NUMBERS
Jake Oettinger went 5-0-2 against the Central this season with the Nashville win (he stopped 31 of 32 on opening night against the Preds for a victory as well).
After no penalties in the first period, the two teams combined for eight minor penalties in the next 25 minutes of the game.
Benn’s first-period goal was the 343rd of his Stars career. That ranks him second all-time behind Mike Modano (557), as Benn passed Brian Bellows and his 342 goals.
Dallas’ 26-year-old left-winger Fredrik Olofsson made his NHL debut against Nashville.
WHO SAID?
“I think his game just gets better and better,” Dallas head coach Peter DeBoer said of Benn after the game.
“We played great coming out of the break traveling this morning,” DeBoer said of the victory. “I thought we had a great first. I thought in the second we gave the game back a little bit more with the puck decisions than anything. And then I thought we recovered and reset. We got our game back in the third the way we want to play.”
NEXT UP
Dallas finishes a two-game road swing with a trip to Minnesota on Thursday, December 29, starting at 7 p.m. CST.
The Wild (19-9-2) are 7-3-0 in their last 10 and beat the Stars 6-5, the first and only time the two squads have squared off this season.
