Hintz, Robertson help Stars defeat Canucks for 4th straight win

DALLAS -- Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson each had two goals and an assist for the Dallas Stars in a 5-3 win against the Vancouver Canucks at American Airlines Center on Friday.

Oskar Bäck also scored for Dallas (33-17-1), which has won four straight. Jake Oettinger made 26 saves.

It was the Stars' first game without defenseman Miro Heiskanen, who sustained a knee injury in a 4-3 overtime win at the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday. He is set to see a specialist on Monday to determine the best course of treatment and how long he will be out of the lineup.

“We’ve got to have some different formulas here to win games without [Heiskanen] out there. You take him for granted, all the situations he plays in and all the great plays he makes defensively and offensively,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “So, big shoes to fill, and we’re going to have to do it by committee and do it different ways and tonight, like I said, it was special teams and goaltending, and I thought we buckled down in the third and played a good period.”

Conor Garland, Jake DeBrusk, and Carson Soucy scored for Vancouver (23-18-10), which had won three straight. Thatcher Demko made 11 saves.

“I was proud of the team. I thought they played really well,” Canucks coach Rick Tocchet said. “That’s a good hockey team over there. We kept them to a low amount of shots. Special teams won the battle. They got the power-play goal and we couldn’t get it.”

During the game, Vancouver traded forward J.T. Miller to the New York Rangers for forward Filip Chytil, defenseman Victor Mancini, and a conditional first-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft.

"We're obviously going to miss him here. He had a lot of compete and played some really good hockey for us," Canucks captain Quinn Hughes said. "But in saying that, we've got to refocus on the guys we do have here."

Back gave Dallas a 1-0 lead at 9:12 of the first period, scoring from the low slot through the legs of Vancouver forward Aatu Raty after receiving a pass from Colin Blackwell, who stole the puck from Filip Hronek behind the net.

“We talked about it before the game that they had some moves. We tried to focus on and keep how we’ve been playing the last 20 games,” Hintz said. “Jake kept us in it early in the game. Oskar's line got us going.”

Garland tied it 1-1 at 5:08 of the second period with a shot from below the left circle on a 3-on-2 rush.

Robertson put Dallas back in front 2-1 at 16:29, scoring a power-play goal off a passing sequence with Wyatt Johnston and Matt Duchene in the slot.

“I mean, at the end of the day, you’re happy winning any game,” Robertson said. “Obviously, in an 82-game year it's all going to be different. I think it's one of the few games where I don’t think we generated enough, but our special teams really took over and just found a way to win. So, obviously you don’t want to be in that situation every night, but we were able to get it done tonight.”

Hintz made it 3-1 at 4:04 of the third period. He got behind Vancouver's defense, held off a backcheck from Noah Juulsen, and slid a backhand five-hole on Demko.

Hintz then scored short-handed into an empty net at 16:33 to push it to 4-1.

“I think the third period was solid. I think it was the best that we had, but we can play a lot better than that game,” Stars defenseman Esa Lindell said. “Jake gave us a chance and special teams were a big part today.”

DeBrusk cut it to 4-2 at 17:51, stuffing the puck in from the top of the crease for a power-play goal, but Robertson scored his second of the game into an empty net with 53 seconds remaining to make it 5-2.

Soucy scored on a one-timer from the right circle with four seconds left for the 5-3 final.

“I thought the guys played a really strong game tonight. I thought we did a lot of good things. We’ll look at ways to always get better,” Canucks defenseman Tyler Myers said. “Guys played hard tonight. It was a close game. A couple of empty-netters at the end made it look, the score didn’t really match how the game was.”