Patrick Marleau felt reaching a milestone gave him a little extra energy, and he put it to good use.
Marleau scored a key goal in his 1,700th NHL game, Brent Burns had a goal and an assist, and the San Jose Sharks spoiled the return of former star Joe Pavelski, beating the Dallas Stars 2-1 on Saturday night.
Aaron Dell had 27 saves for the Sharks, who are 5-2-2 over their last nine games after going 1-8-1 in their previous 10.
Jamie Benn scored for the Stars, who had a six-game winning streak halted.
Marleau became the fifth NHL player to reach the 1,700-game plateau and the youngest to do so (40 years, 118 days).
"You get a little extra energy, some extra jump and it's nice getting that one on the board tonight," Marleau said.
Marleau extended his ironman streak for games played under contract to 831, the second-longest among active streak behind Florida Panthers defenseman Keith Yandle (841) and the sixth longest all-time.
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The Sharks broke a 1-1 tie early in the second when Marleau rebounded a shot by Burns from the blue line and poked it past Anton Khudobin for his eighth goal.
Pavelski was playing his former team for the first time since signing a $21 million, three-year deal with Dallas during the offseason. A video tribute to Pavelski followed the player introductions. The former Sharks captain skated across the ice and waved to fans who gave him a long ovation just before the start of the game.
Pavelski played 963 games in 13 seasons in San Jose and is the franchise's second all-time leading goal scorer (355) and ranks third in assists (406) and points (761).
"All the noises, all the sounds, almost everything brought back a lot of good memories," Pavelski said.
"I don't know what I expected exactly but it was a special night, it was fun. I enjoyed it. It was just fun to share it with everybody."
Benn scored from the slot on a redirect of Tyler Seguin's pass. His 11th goal gave the Stars a quick lead at 1:32 of the first period on a power play.
The Sharks tied it with 4:27 left in the first on Burns' ninth goal and second in as many games. Burns scored when a pass from Timo Meier ricocheted off his skate and through Khudobin's pads.
Burns left the game in the second period after taking a hard hit from Roope Hintz, but returned in the third.
Khudobin had 24 saves.
"I think we played well enough to get a point, at least," interim Stars coach Rick Bowness said.
"We had some good looks late, we didn't score. Difference in the game was the puck was off their skate in the net. We just didn't capitalize on some of the looks we had. They played very, very, well tonight."
Dell made several key saves for San Jose down the stretch.
"At least two, if not three, game-changing saves he made," interim Sharks coach Boughner said. "You need those saves throughout the 60 minutes and it really energized our team."
NOTES
Dallas D John Klingberg (lower body injury) skated on Saturday and will be re-evaluated on Tuesday. He's missed his last three games. . Sharks C Joe Thornton played his 1,613th NHL game to move past Ray Bourque for 11th place on the NHL's all-time list. Thornton is two games behind Larry Murphy (1,615) for 10th. . Marleau became the fifth NHL player to appear in 1,700 games and the youngest to do so (40 years, 118 days). . San Jose recalled F Lukas Radil from the San Jose Barracuda, its AHL affiliate. . Sharks D Erik Karlsson extended his point streak to five games with an assist on Burns' goal. He has one goal and five assists over that stretch.
UP NEXT
Stars: At Colorado on Tuesday.
Sharks: At Arizona on Tuesday.
