Roope Hintz had to wait until the fourth round for his turn. When it came, he changed speeds.
Hintz approached Scott Wedgewood from the left at a deliberately slower pace, picked his spot and scored the shootout winner as the Dallas Stars beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 on Wednesday night at Ball Arena. Casey DeSmith then stopped Brock Nelson to close it out.
"I just tried to come a little bit slower from the left side and tried to pick my spot and just get a shot there," Hintz told NHL.com. "Always a good match against them, and I think we played really good yesterday. Just didn't get the result we wanted, so I think it was good to come back today and get the win."
The result split a home-and-home series that Colorado opened with a 3-2 regulation win on Tuesday. It also stopped a two-game slide for Dallas, which had gone 0-1-1 in that stretch and now sits at 3-3-1. Colorado moved to 4-2-1.
The shootout swung back and forth before Hintz settled it. Jason Robertson converted first for Dallas, and Martin Necas was denied. Tyler Seguin missed, and Nazem Kadri pulled Colorado even. Mikko Rantanen could not beat Wedgewood in the third round, and DeSmith turned away Nathan MacKinnon. That left the fourth round to Hintz, then Nelson, per the Hockey-Reference shootout log.
Hintz did not figure in the scoring through 65 minutes, finishing with one shot on goal in 18:05 of ice time, per Hockey-Reference. Afterward he deflected credit toward Arttu Hyry, whose shorthanded breakaway had given Dallas its only lead in regulation. "He deserved that, obviously," Hintz said. "He's had so many good looks now. Just haven't been going in."
Colorado had two first-period goals taken off the board, one on a Dallas offside challenge and one for a kicking motion, before Gabriel Landeskog got one that counted, tipping Kadri's shot at 4:55 of the second. Miro Heiskanen answered at 15:03 from the left dot on a feed from Rantanen.
It was Heiskanen's 70th career goal, moving him past Daryl Sydor for sixth among defensemen in Stars history, according to NHL.com. Hyry made it 2-1 at 1:20 of the third, and Nelson tied it at 8:21 by finishing a loose puck around DeSmith's right leg.
