Justin Sourdif’s goal was the sort of sequence that makes a two-goal lead feel like a temporary administrative error. Anthony Beauvillier sent a shot toward the net, the puck came off Sourdif, clipped Jake Oettinger and rolled across the line. Washington had made it 6-4 at 12:55 of the third period, and Dallas’ once-comfortable evening had become a one-goal game in waiting.
The goal also deserves to be separated from the earlier third-period change that gave Dallas its cushion. Roope Hintz scored with 1:23 gone in the period, when an intended pass struck Washington defenseman Martin Fehervary and deflected past Charlie Lindgren. Both pucks changed direction.
They did not arrive there by the same route, and that distinction is the clearest way to read Dallas’ 6-5 victory over the Capitals.
A coach can address a 5-3 intermission. Dallas had carried that lead into the second break after Washington turned a 4-0 deficit into a much less comfortable game. A staff can choose how to use the next 20 minutes, which matchups to favor and what kind of execution to demand.
It cannot arrange for a defender to catch a pass at a favorable angle or for a shot to touch two bodies and still cross the line.
Hintz’s goal came first and functioned as an insurance marker, though its construction was hardly a clean shooting sequence. He tried to send the puck through the attacking area as a pass. Fehervary interrupted that route, and the altered puck reached the net behind Lindgren.
Esa Lindell and Jason Robertson received the assists, while Hintz received the goal because his attempted connection became the decisive scoring action.
That goal made the score 6-3, a three-goal margin Dallas had built earlier and briefly recovered. It did not erase Washington’s second-period push, but it forced the Capitals to restart their pursuit. Hintz finished with one goal and two assists, the latter both secondary assists on Robertson goals.
The third-period marker was his most consequential contribution because it bought Dallas room before the game began squeezing that room away again.
Sourdif’s goal had a more direct attacking beginning. Beauvillier put a shot on net, Sourdif redirected it, and Oettinger got enough of the puck to alter its path without stopping it. The play was not merely a fortunate pass that wandered into the goal. Washington created a shot, found a touch in front and benefited when the goaltender’s contact failed to finish the job.
The scoreboard made the bounce more valuable. Washington scored twice after Hintz put Dallas ahead 6-3. The Capitals finished the period with twelve shots to the Stars’ four.
Shot totals cannot identify the quality of every opportunity, but they do establish who was forcing the game’s final stretch. Sourdif’s goal reduced the deficit to two with time remaining, leaving Washington in position to keep testing a Dallas lead that had already changed shape several times.
