Benn’s hat trick gives Stars win in San Jose
Jamie Benn stole the puck from Tomas Hertl and scored the go-ahead goal with 3:06 left before finishing a hat trick with an empty-netter to give Dallas a 4-2 victory over the Sharks at SAP Center on Tuesday night.
Mike McKenna, who replaced an injured Kari Lehtonen, got the victory after stopping all 17 shots he faced. McKenna last played in the NHL for the Coyotes on Feb. 16, 2015.
Gemel Smith scored with 5:17 left in the third period to tie it. Devon Shore won a battle along the boards and rushed the net, tapping it to Smith at the last second.
Logan Couture set a career high with his 33rd goal of the season and Timo Meier scored No. 20 for the Sharks, who lost their fourth straight.
Lehtonen left the game with an upper-body injury with 4:06 remaining in the first period. He took a puck to the facemask, though that might be incidental to a possible injury in the neck area. Lehtonen saved 12 of 14 shots.
The Sharks were playing without forward Evander Kane, who missed the game with an apparent arm injury incurred at Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Couture put them ahead 1-0 after taking a pass from Brent Burns and firing it into the net from long range midway through the first period.
Meier added to the lead six minutes later after chasing down a puck that had bounced off Lehtonen’s pads. Meier fired from the right side, finding a hole under Lehtonen’s glove.
Benn, who has points in 10 of his past 13 games, made it 2-1 late in the second period, redirecting a centering pass from John Klingberg off Jones’ shoulder pad and into the net. Benn added an empty-net goal in the closing seconds.
Sharks center Dylan Gambrell made his NHL debut in the game, and San Jose also looked to its future by signing Sasha Chmelevski to a contract and assigning him to the AHL Barracudas. “Blessed to have signed my first NHL contract,” he tweeted.
The Sharks announced earlier that they’d signed free agent forward Lukas Radil to a one-year contract.
Radil, 27, had 16 goals and 22 assists in 51 games with Spartak of the Kontinental Hockey League, and he represented his native Czech Republic at the Winter Olympics in February.