Hintz completes hat trick with 8 seconds left in OT, Stars top Blackhawks

DALLAS -- Roope Hintz completed a hat trick with eight seconds left in overtime to give the Dallas Stars a 5-4 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at American Airlines Center on Friday.

Hintz scored on a shot from the slot off a pass from Jason Robertson. Tyler Johnson tied it 4-4 at 17:24 of the third period for Chicago on the power play, scoring on a rebound from the side of the net.

“We don’t want to give the puck to them so easy, and don’t want to force plays if it’s not there,” Hintz said. “It’s good to have the possession in [overtime]. You get more chances by that.”

Joe Pavelski and Jamie Benn each had a goal and an assist, and Robertson had two assists for the Stars (21-9-4), who are 6-1-1 in their past eight games. Scott Wedgewood made 25 saves.

Dallas trailed 2-0 midway through the first period.

“We have shown we can come back from leads when we’re down in games,” Stars forward Wyatt Johnston said. “That’s one thing we’re happy with, we know we’re never out of the game. At the same time, we want to be playing with the lead a little bit more. I think for us it’s just staying patient with our game, sticking with what we know works. I think at the end of the day, it’s shown throughout the year that when we do those things, it’ll work out for us.”

Johnson scored twice, and Jason Dickinson and Cole Guttman each had a goal and an assist for the Blackhawks (11-22-2), who have lost 10 straight road games (0-9-1). Petr Mrazek made 30 saves.

“I know they brought 3-on-3 [overtime play] to try to be exciting and everything, [but] through all the history I have of playing 3-on-3, it is possession,” Johnson said. “The more you can wear a team down, catch guys tired, that’s when you get your odd-man opportunities.

“You really shouldn’t just take shots to take shots. I think 3-on-3 hockey, what everyone wants it to be, if you want to win it, you can’t really play that way. They did what they needed to do to win.”

Johnson gave Chicago a 1-0 lead at 7:56 in the first period when he tipped the puck over Wedgewood’s shoulder as he drove to the net.

Guttman extended it to 2-0 at 10:56 with a shot from the top of the crease off a Lukas Reichel pass from behind the net.

“We have the lead, but instead of -- not necessarily sitting back and protecting it, because I don’t think that’s ever good -- I think just making those right decisions of not doing those hope plays,” Johnson said. “Not doing those plays that you know what, it might work, might not.

“When you have the lead, you have to make the for-sure play, the simple play. Sometimes it’s not sexy, it’s not going to create anything, but at least you’re not going to have something go against you.”

Hintz cut it to 2-1 at 11:49 on the power play with a backdoor tap-in.

“I liked our energy early,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “I’m looking at the clock, it’s 2-0 them, and I thought we easily could have two or three goals at that point too. They got a couple of huge saves early, we had a couple go in, and you’re behind. It wasn’t like at that point we were being outplayed or out-chanced or outworked, just one of those nights. I thought we showed some good resiliency and some composure. You don’t like to be in that hole, but we dug ourselves out.”

Pavelski tied it 2-2 at 9:03 of the second period when he deflected a Nils Lundkvist point shot while screening Mrazek.

“I thought we started out really well,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “They pushed back, had a really nice power-play goal, but we killed off the next [power play]. The second period, we just had too much [defensive] zone time. I think we just backed off for some reason, just played a little bit more defensive, meaning not attacking them even in the [defensive] zone. It’s a big team that can skate, so that’s not a good recipe for us.”

Hintz gave Dallas a 3-2 lead 20 seconds later at 9:23, finishing off a cross-ice pass from Robertson into an open net.

“He’s doing what he does,” Robertson said of Hintz. “Skating in the middle of the ice, using his speed, driving the middle of the lanes, getting rewarded. I thought we were a lot more connected today than it has been the last couple of weeks, months. We’re trying to rekindle that chemistry, moving the puck around quickly, and we did that tonight.”

Benn extended it to 4-2 at 2:10 of the third period when he scored on a rebound from the slot.

Dickinson cut it to 4-3 at 8:58 on a one-timer from the high slot.

“I thought we showed a lot of good push, we never quit,” Dickinson said. “They score that goal in the third and we could have packed it in and said, ‘Oh, we’ll come back and get them Sunday.’ But we kept the line, we kept pushing, we kept trying.”

NOTES: Hintz became the fifth player in franchise history to complete a hat trick with an overtime goal (Robertson, March 4, 2022; Dino Ciccarelli, March 17, 1986; Tom McCarthy, March 12, 1984; and Neal Broten, Nov. 26, 1983). ... Blackhawks forward Taylor Raddysh exited with a lower-body injury at 4:59 of the first period. “We’ll have to see how he settles down," Richardson said. "It’s something lower body, hopefully he’s OK, but we’ll check on him tomorrow.” ... Chicago defenseman Nikita Zaitsev (undisclosed) was a late scratch. Richardson did not provide an update.