Marleau scores in 1,700th NHL game, Sharks top Stars in Pavelski return

SAN JOSE -- Patrick Marleau scored in his 1,700th NHL game, and the San Jose Sharks spoiled Joe Pavelski's return with a 2-1 win against the Dallas Stars at SAP Center on Saturday.

Marleau became the fifth player in NHL history to reach the milestone but the youngest to do so (40 years, 118 days). His eighth goal of the season at 2:56 of the second period broke a 1-1 tie.
"It's one of those milestone games," said Marleau, the first player to score in his 1,700th NHL game. "You get a little extra energy, some extra jump, and it's nice getting that one on the board tonight."
WATCH: [All Stars vs. Sharks highlights]
Pavelski played his first 13 seasons with the Sharks, scoring 761 points (355 goals, 406 assists) in 963 games before signing a three-year contract with the Stars on July 1.
"Thanks to everyone involved out there, and everyone who showed up tonight," Pavelski said. "Would have liked to win, for sure, but it was pretty special."
Brent Burns had a goal and an assist, and Aaron Dell made 27 saves for his fourth win in five decisions for San Jose (21-22-4), which is 4-1-1 in the past six games.
"At least two if not three game-changing saves he made," Sharks coach Bob Boughner said. "You hear the crowd, you hear the enthusiasm in the building and the players feed off that.
"There's going to be breakdowns in games, and their guy made some big stops as well, but you need those saves throughout the 60 minutes and it really energized our team."

Jamie Benn scored, and Anton Khudobin made 24 saves for the Stars (26-15-4), who had won six in a row.
"We played well enough to get a point, at least," Stars coach Rick Bowness said. "We had some good looks late. … We just didn't capitalize on some of the looks we had."
Benn gave Dallas a 1-0 lead at 1:32 of the first period when he redirected Tyler Seguin's pass 40 seconds into a power play.
The Sharks tied it 1-1 at 15:33 when Timo Meier's pass caromed off Burns' skate for his ninth goal of the season.
"It's huge going into any period not down a goal, so it was great to get that tied up before the end of the period," Dell said. "Kind of a weird play, but we'll take it."

Dallas was one win away from winning a seventh straight game for the second time this season.
"We didn't give our best tonight and we still were in the game and we still had chances to tie it up late," Stars forward Jason Dickinson said. "We can't be too upset with the result, but we need to learn from it."

They said it

"It had a little bit of everything. It was weird, it was fun, it was fun seeing the other guys, it was fun taking face-offs against these guys. There were some good lines out there, I just really enjoyed it." -- Stars center Joe Pavelski on his return to San Jose
"I feel pretty good right now. I feel I'm getting better every outing. I think we're getting some more confidence as a team. We're starting to do the little things more consistently throughout the game." -- Sharks goalie Aaron Dell

Need to know

San Jose forward Joe Thornton played his 1,613th NHL game to pass Ray Bourque and move into 11th place on the all-time list. Thornton is two games behind Larry Murphy for 10th place. … Burns returned in the third period after sustaining an upper-body injury early in the second period. It is not considered a threat to his 518-game consecutive streak, Boughner said. … San Jose defenseman Erik Karlsson extended his point streak to five games (one goal, five assists). … Dallas defenseman Esa Lindell had his five-game assist streak end. He had eight assists in the run.

What's next

Stars: At the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday (9 p.m. ET; ESPN+, ALT, FS-SW+, NHL.TV)
Sharks: At the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday (9 p.m. ET; FS-A PLUS, NBCSCA, NHL.TV)