A year after Dallas Stars center Roope Hintz checked in at No. 14 on NHL Network’s ranking of the league’s top centers, he made another appearance on the network’s list entering the 2025-26 season.
While Hintz is on the list again, he slid a couple spots to No. 17 after tallying 67 points (28 goals, 29 assists) in 76 regular-season games. Hintz, who turns 29 years old in November, has become a mainstay in the Stars’ lineup during his career as a standout two-way player and has eclipsed 60 points in each of the last four seasons. He has received votes for the Selke Award (given to the league’s best defensive forward) each of the last four seasons as well, finishing as high as sixth in the voting.
During the Stars’ playoff run last season, he totaled 12 points in 17 games, but missed Game 3 of the Western Conference finals due to an injury that stemmed from a controversial slash from Edmonton’s Darnell Nurse.
Hintz is one of several Finnish stars on Dallas’ roster, as he was one of the centerpieces of the Stars’ “Finnish Mafia” that was comprised of trade deadline acquisitions Mikko Rantanen and Mikael Granlund, Hintz, and Dallas’ top defensemen Esa Lindell and Miro Heiskanen. While Granlund departed for the Anaheim Ducks in free agency, the Stars still have a top-shelf Finnish quartet in Hintz, Rantanen, Lindell and Heiskanen.
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Hintz is not the only Dallas Stars player to appear on NHL Network’s top players lists at each position. Heiskanen and Thomas Harley made the top defensemen list, while Jason Robertson and Rantanen ranked among the league’s top wings.
Here’s what NHL Network wrote about Hintz heading into the 2025-26 season:
“Hintz had 67 points (28 goals, 29 assists) in 76 regular-season games, and 12 points (six goals, six assists) in the playoffs, third on the Stars behind Mikko Rantanen (22) and Thomas Harley (14). Hintz and Rantanen became the first pair of teammates in NHL history with four points in a playoff period, each getting the total in the second period of a 7-4 loss to the Colorado Avalanche in Game 6 of the Western Conference First Round at Ball Arena, a series Dallas won in seven.”
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