Roope Hintz heads into 2026-27 with the same question that has followed him through much of his NHL career: what happens when the injuries stay away?
The Stars center is 29 now, listed at 6-3 and 217 pounds, and he’s entering the fourth year of an eight-year deal that carries an $8.45 million average annual value. Even with the setbacks, his production last season was strong enough to keep him among Dallas’ most important players. In 53 games, he put up 15 goals and 29 assists for 44 points while averaging 17:20 of ice time.
His 2025-26 season started the way so many of his seasons have - with steady, dependable production. Hintz collected eight points, including one goal and seven assists, along with 76 faceoff wins in his first eight games.
He looked locked in right away. That early rhythm was interrupted on October 25 against Carolina at home, when Taylor Hall hit him hard in the corner and was given a charging penalty on the play.
Hintz only missed five games, and when he came back, he was rolling. In his first 18 games after returning, the speedy Finn produced 18 points, with eight goals and 10 assists.
He also finished plus-13, picked up eight points on the power play and won 62.2 percent of his faceoffs over that stretch. He had a point in all but three of those games, and by the time the calendar turned, he was firmly among the team’s top five scorers.
Then the scoring touch cooled. From Jan. 1 until the start of the Olympic break, Hintz scored just three goals on 48 shots - one on the power play, one at 6-on-5 and one empty-netter - in 17 games.
Even so, the playmaking kept coming. He added 10 assists and won 62.4 percent of his draws during that span.
At the Olympic break, he had 44 points in 52 games and was tracking at a pace that looked very much like his recent seasons, each of which had produced 65 or more points.
He took that momentum to Italy with Team Finland and delivered there too, finishing with four points in six games and a bronze medal in his Olympic debut. But the break did not come without another setback. Hintz landed on injured reserve with an illness and missed the first four games after the hiatus.
When he finally returned on March 6, his night against the Avalanche ended after just 14 shifts. In a puck battle with Nathan MacKinnon, he tore his hamstring in two spots, an injury that shut him down for the rest of the season and the playoffs.
Even with a 29-game absence, Hintz still finished top 10 in assists, points and faceoff win percentage across the league, landing seventh in assists, sixth in points and first in faceoff win percentage.
That combination of impact and missed time has defined too much of his career. He was over a point per game in the shortened 2020-21 season while centering Jason Robertson and Joe Pavelski, but a nagging lower-body injury limited him to 41 of 56 games.
Two years later, he had 37 goals and 75 points, but nine missed games likely kept him from reaching even bigger totals. Across eight NHL seasons, he still hasn’t played a full schedule, and he has reached the 80-game mark only once.
What hasn’t changed is how valuable he is when he’s available. Hintz has finished among Dallas’ top five scorers in six of the last seven seasons and has won at least 52 percent of his faceoffs in five straight years.
Over the last five seasons, he has a plus-106 rating, which ranks second on the team and eighth in the NHL. Among forwards over that stretch, only Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid have been better.
His goal total has come down from the back-to-back 37-goal seasons he posted in 2021-22 and 2022-23, but he’s become a major playmaker. From the Four Nations break to the end of the 2025 regular season, he had 25 assists in his final 25 games, tied for third-most in the NHL. Last season, he was on pace for a career-high 45 assists before injuries changed the picture.
Some of that playmaking has been fueled by his time on the top power play and by his chemistry with Robertson. That pairing could be joined by Tyler Seguin on the right wing to start this season, giving Dallas a veteran line built on pace and finishing. With Wyatt Johnston now giving the Stars another center option, Hintz still has plenty of room to remain one of the team’s most dangerous forwards.
He brings size, speed, skill and hockey sense to just about every situation on the ice. The talent is obvious. The only real question is whether his body will finally cooperate.
In Other News...
Stars Prospect Pipeline Suddenly Looks Much Thinner Than Fans Expected
The Stars prospect picture looks different now than it did a year or two ago, and not necessarily in a bad way. As more of the top young talent has graduated into the NHL, the pipeline has naturally gotten thinner, leaving a group that leans more on projection and role fit than on obvious star power. For a team trying to keep its contention window open, that kind of shift matters just as much as the headline names.
Lian Bichsel sits at the top of the remaining group, and the appeal is pretty clear: size, strength and the kind of physical presence Dallas can use down the road. The question is how much offense will come with it, because that remains the separator between a useful defense prospect and something more. Behind him, names like Jakub Vanek, Mns Goos, Atte Joki and Emil Hemming give the system some depth, but the broader takeaway is hard to miss - this is a prospect list built more on upside and uncertainty than on a long line of sure things. [Read more 🡒]