One of the biggest storylines heading into the Western Conference Final was the clear edge the Dallas Stars had over the Edmonton Oilers in the crease. Stuart Skinner had been struggling all playoffs, even getting benched for two games, whereas Jake Oettinger was one of the top performing goalies of the entire postseason.
There were two expectations when it came to that key difference between the two netminders. The first was that the Stars would be able to light up Skinner, much like they did against Alexandar Georgiev in the second round — that hasn’t exactly happened yet, with Skinner going back-to-back games of only allowing two goals against and looking pretty sharp, a nice change of pace for Edmonton. The other is that the Stars would need Oettinger to stay on his A-game and stand tall against the Oilers’ superstar players to keep games from devolving into a scoring bonanza.
That, in contrast, has been true thus far. Oettinger allowed only one goal tonight, posting a .966 SV% that puts his postseason average at .922, behind only Igor Shesterskin (.928) and the eliminated Jeremy Swayman (.933). For the first time all postseason, Leon Draisaitl was held off the scoreboard, and so were the Oilers’ other 20+ point men in Evan Bouchard and Connor McDavid. In fact, that lone goal came courtesy of Connor Brown, Cody Ceci, and Warren Foegele — not exactly the kinds of players you expect to chip in on a goal more than once in a blue moon.
But the most telling portion of Oettinger’s performance was that first period, in which the Oilers outshot Dallas 16-4, yet it was only 1-1 at the buzzer. By weathering the storm, Oettinger prevented his team from having to play catch up the rest of the game, and the Stars were able to take advantage of that by outshooting Edmonton 21-13 the rest of the way, including a looooong stretch in the third without an Oilers shot on net.
The Stars, of course, were well aware of this, with Jamie Benn in particular telling reporters that they were only able to find their game in the second and third periods because Oettinger saved their butts in the first (I am paraphrasing here). It was a time where Dallas needed their somewhat elite goaltender to be elite, and boy was he ever.
I mean, as good as Skinner has been the past two games, do you think the score is 1-1 after one if Dallas had that sort of shot edge? Personally, I highly doubt it, and that just goes to show how that edge in the crease really matters — the playoffs are almost always about which goalies get hot when, and right now, Dallas has one who’s been sizzling for most games.
• If Dallas wins seven more games, the players will get to lift the Stanley Cup over each of their heads. But before that, one player will get a hold of the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP, and I think Jake Oettinger has a good chance of getting it if he keeps this level of play up.
That being said, he is going to have some stiff competition from Miro Heiskanen. Not only is he leading the team in scoring, but his defensive work has been nothing short of incredible this postseason. Here’s your crazy stat of the night:
To put things into perspective: the last time Dallas was scored on with Miro Heiskanen on the ice was Miles Wood’s overtime winner in Game 1 against the Colorado Avalanche. Since then, he has helped shut down the likes of Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Valeri Nichushkin (briefly), Cale Makar, Evan Bouchard, Leon Draisaitl, and Connor McDavid.
Now granted, Chris Tanev has squared up against several of those players often, and he has been fantastic in doing so. But the narrative of the shiny new toy shutting down top players I think has overshadowed that Heiskanen has been doing the exact same, perhaps no more evident than tonight’s third period in which he constantly hit the ice when McDavid was out and kept the best player in the world in check. Then again, “overshadowed” would probably be the title of Heiskanen’s biography if written right now, so perhaps it’s just par for the course.
• So long as we’re heaping on praise, I think Jamie Benn had a fantastic game tonight, and not just because he opened the scoring for the Stars. I felt he had tremendous effort throughout the game, and helped develop several scoring opportunities as well as stop the Oilers’ transition game at multiple points. I remember thinking that between him and Tyler Seguin scoring twice in Game 1, it was only fitting that in this “throwback” of a playoff series, it was the Stars’ two longest tenured players who were showing up the most.
Of course, the hockey gods had a more ironic plan for the game in mind by giving the game-winning goal to Mason Marchment. I distinctively remember thinking about how this series was starting to remind of round one against the Vegas Golden Knights, namely how the goalie (Skinner in this case) was giving up a lot of rebounds and possible clear-cut goals, but Dallas wasn’t getting the bounces. Right as I finished that thought, Mason Marchment shot the puck, I asked out loud, “Funny bounce?” and sure enough, funny bounce indeed.
• That was absolute terrible timing by Edmonton when it came to pulling Stuart Skinner for the extra attacker. As he was getting close to the bench, I remember thinking he was about to turn tail and bolt back to the crease, but it never came. Or perhaps it wasn’t so much the timing, but rather a clear communication breakdown — none of the Edmonton skaters seemed to actually know their net was empty. I mean, why else would they give Esa Lindell so much time and space with the puck?
• In their post-game availability, the Oilers seemed to take issue with the refereeing, more specifically the lack of Dallas penalties throughout two games:
Now, look, I understand that every team thinks that the refs are out to get them. And as much as Stars fans might not want to admit it, if the referees were going to be biased in this series on orders from the league, it would be in the Stars’ favor, as small market Canada team does nothing for the TV numbers in the US.
That being said… I mean, what are we doing here? You know the Dallas Stars were the least penalized team in the NHL this year, bottom five if you only count minor penalties. They’ve remained disciplined in the postseason as well, with a big storyline heading into the series being that Dallas needed to stay such as to avoid getting feasted on by the Edmonton power play. But now you’re apparently surprised that the team that doesn’t take penalties isn’t getting called for penalties?
I think Erin Bolen put it best on Twitter when she pointed out that the Oilers have been drawing a lot more penalties this postseason than they did in the regular season, in large part due to them facing the first and third post penalized teams in the league in the first two rounds. Meanwhile, the Stars have been the definition of low-penalty hockey, in both taking penalties (16th out of playoff teams) and drawing them (15th). So when you go from getting a lot of power players to a more “normal” level (especially for the playoffs), there is a mood whiplash there.
But still, maybe don’t act like there’s some grand conspiracy or double standard being set here. Dallas isn’t going to the box because they don’t usually go to the box. Don’t overthink it!
• Finally, I got to finally celebrate a Stars goal in a Western Conference Final game last night after watching two shutouts last year, so that was great. But even better was that I got to watch it with not just my dad as per usual, but my brother and his fiancée who were in town from out of state. I still remember the two of us arguing as kids who got to go to which Stars game with our dad (hint: no matter who went the previous game, we both believed it was our “turn”), so it was nice for all three of us to attend for the first time in probably a decade, give or take.