DALLAS (AP) — Miro Heiskanen scored two goals, Stars captain Jamie Benn recorded his 500th career assist and Dallas won 6-3 Monday night over the Detroit Red Wings, who were without injured captain Dylan Larkin and suspended forward David Perron.
Perron was suspended six games without pay by the NHL on Monday for his retaliatory cross-check two days earlier against Ottawa defenseman Artem Zub. That came in the aftermath of Larkin being knocked unconscious when cross-checked in the back of the head and neck by Senators forward Mathieu Joseph.
“Last game in particular was obviously a little bit of a shell shock. But I think we built confidence kind of over the course of today’s game,” Red Wings center Andrew Copp said. “I think we were a little shaky about how it was going to go, just missing some of those guys that we are.”
Jason Robertson and Esa Lindell each had a goal and an assist as the Stars won their 11th consecutive home game over Detroit since January 2017. They rebounded for a 6-1 home loss to Vegas two days earlier.
“It was six (games) in 10 nights tonight, so I was a little worried about our energy levels,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “But we showed up and thought we had we had good energy, got good contributions from everybody.”
Dallas went ahead to stay on Lindell's goal at the very end of the first period. Replay showed the puck hitting the left post with 0.2 seconds left on the clock and ricocheting over the line to make it 2-1.
“The goal at the end of the first is huge ... a big momentum shift for us and takes that away from them,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said.
“Just try to shoot quickly,” Lindell said. “I was surprised a little bit it went in and I wasn’t sure if it beat the clock.”
Lindell had the primary assist on Robertson's ninth goal midway through the second period before Matt Duchene's goal for a 4-1 lead. Joe Pavelski added a power-play goal with 6:09 left in the game, only 30 seconds after Joe Veleno had one for Detroit to make it a 4-3 game.
Robertson and Benn assisted on Heiskanen's power-play goal that tied the game 1-1 in the first period. Heiskanen added an empty-netter with 42 seconds left in the game.
Stars goalie Jake Oettinger had 27 saves. Detroit's James Reimer stopped 29 of 34 shots.
Benn, playing in his 1,057th career game, joined Mike Modano and Neal Broten as the only players with 500 assists for the franchise. Benn also has 367 goals, and the captain's 867 career points matched Broten for second-most, still well behind Modano's 1,359 points (557 goals, 802 assists).
The Red Wings also placed left wing J.T. Compher and center Klim Kostin on injured reserve with undisclosed injuries before the game. Jonatan Berggren, one of the three players called up from Grand Rapids under emergency conditions, scored a goal.
Detroit led 1-0 about 5 1/2 minutes into the game on Daniel Sprong's seventh goal.