Robertson, Stars close season with OT win against Blackhawks

CHICAGO -- Jason Robertson scored with 30 seconds remaining in overtime, and the Dallas Stars defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 5-4 at United Center on Monday in the final game of the season for each team.

Jamie Benn's shot redirected off Collin Delia's right pad to Robertson, and the rookie forward scored on the rebound for the Stars.
"It's nice to finish the season off with a win, especially since overtimes weren't too great throughout the year," Robertson said. "Nice to overcome that and win the last game in OT. Weird feeling coming back to the locker room that you just won the game, but the season's over. It's mixed feelings right now."
John Klingberg had three assists, Robertson and Miro Heiskanen each had a goal and an assist, and Jake Oettinger made 19 saves for Dallas (23-19-14), which killed 3:40 of a double-minor penalty in overtime after losing 4-2 to Chicago here Sunday.
"For them to come out with that effort, it doesn't surprise me and it shows us what they're made of," Stars coach Rick Bowness said. "This team is exhausted, and they still found a way, and if we had to play tomorrow, they'd come up with the energy to come out and compete. Give them a ton of credit."
The Stars were 2-4-2 in their final eight games of the season.
Delia made 45 saves, and Alex DeBrincat, Vinnie Hinostroza, Dylan Strome and Pius Suter each had a goal and an assist for Chicago (24-25-7).
"Would've loved to get the win," Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton said. "Obviously, they were better than us tonight. We counted a lot on Delia. We got some opportunistic goals, allowed us to have the lead, but ultimately it just wasn't enough."
Chicago went 2-5-2 in its final nine games.
Dallas finished in fifth place in the eight-team Discover Central Division. Chicago was sixth.
Suter redirected Heiskanen's pass to DeBrincat, who scored on a breakaway with a backhand shot 53 seconds into the first period. DeBrincat had eight goals during a career-long seven-game goal streak, and 12 points (nine goals, three assists) during an eight-game point streak.
Suter received DeBrincat's pass at the right face-off circle and scored with a wrist shot to make it 2-0 at 1:22.
"I tried to forecheck and it goes off my stick, and I see [DeBrincat] going like the wrong way on the highway [to] just to get in the zone and he made a nice move," Suter said. "Next shift we get out there, basically make a nice cycle and I just put it on net and it went in."

Pavelski cut it to 2-1 at 15:30 when he tipped Klingberg's shot from the right boards at the far post.
Strome finished a 2-on-0 breakaway with Hinostroza to make it 3-1 at 16:28 of the second period.
Heiskanen's wrist shot from the right circle on the power play with two seconds remaining in the second made it 3-2.
Hinostroza extended the lead to 4-2 at 8:18 of the third period with a backhand shot between Oettinger's legs.
The Stars scored two goals in a span of 1:54 to tie it. Joel Kiviranta cut it to 4-3 at 10:24 on a rebound, and Jason Dickinson tied it 4-4 at 12:18 from the slot.

"It's nice to win the last game," Pavelski said. "It doesn't feel good missing the playoffs, knowing this was your last game without a chance. But the group still wanted to play hard and there's a lot of pride in that room, so it was good to see us battle back tonight, for sure. It was a pretty fun game to play in."
NOTES: Robertson's 28 assists lead all NHL rookies and his 45 points are second to Minnesota Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov, who has 51 points with two regular-season games remaining. … DeBrincat is the first NHL player to score a goal in each of his team's final seven regular-season games since John Anderson of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1984-85. … Hinostroza scored 12 points (four goals, eight assists) in 17 games after being acquired in a trade with the Florida Panthers on April 2. … The Blackhawks rookies scored 41 goals, the most in the NHL. … Chicago won the season series 5-2-1. Dallas was 3-3-2.