Big Jake sealed the 11th shutout of his NHL career as the Victory Green Gang won decisively in their home opener.
The Dallas Stars played their home opener against the Eastern Conference’s own New York Islanders. Which meant they played a team they rarely see during a regular season – one with a fair handful of reliable goal-getters, at that. Plus it was a team coached by Patrick Roy, who is NHL-famous but not always in a good way.
In other words, this could have gone any number of ways. But if you had “2013 is back, baby” on your bingo card, you might have won a side bet or two.
Shall we take a look?…
First Period
The first big moment of the first period didn’t involve a goal or a big save or even a penalty. It was Matt Dumba sliding into the board with his leg folded under him after an awkward hit from Casey Cizikas. He was back on the ice within five minutes, but he left the game early, and an extended absence could spoil our hopes of seeing Miro Heiskanen stay on his left side.
The Stars did get the first power play of the game, but not on that play; Maxim Tsyplakov introduced himself to the class by interfering with Evgenii Dadonov. The special teams got off to a slow start, with only Roope Hintz’s single shot on goal to show for the two-minute advantage.
About eight minutes in, Anthony Duclair threatened to open the scoring, but his snap shot hit Jake Oettinger’s left post. That left Tyler Seguin to strike first, set up by some nice puck retrieval by Heiskanen and finished by precise connect-the-dots passing among Seguin, Mason Marchment and Matt Duchene (who got the first and second assists).
The Islanders worked hard to answer back, pouring quite a few shots on net and doubling up the Stars by the end of the period. Bo Horvat, Ryan Pulock, Brock Nelson, Mathew Barzal…well, you get the picture. A veritable who’s-who of the Isles’ most dangerous shooters tested Oettinger for 12 minutes straight, but Phenomenotter kept the sheet clean until the teams headed for the dressing rooms.
For the period:
SHOTS: DAL 6 – NYI 12
FACE-OFF %: DAL 47.4% – NYI 52.6%
GOALS: DAL 1 – NYI 0
Second Period
Would it have been a surprise, at any point, to learn that at least one period of this game would turn into a goalie duel? Semyon Varlamov has been experiencing flashes of greatness for as long as Otter has been alive (note: this is an exaggeration, but only a little one) – and he made some astonishing saves even as the Stars decided to even up the shots-on-goal stats.
But Oettinger matched him save for save as both teams fought for an offensive advantage. And the Stars would see the payoff yet again. Jamie Benn went top-shelf after a nice trade-off with Wyatt Johnston, who got the sole assist on this vintage Beast-mode beauty.
The Isles wanted to get their own back as quickly as possible, and Scott Mayfield very nearly did. But Oettinger remained a wall in net, and the Stars took a two-goal advantage into the second intermission.
For the period:
SHOTS: DAL 13 – NYI 7
FACE-OFF %: DAL 45.7% – NYI 54.3%
GOALS: DAL 1 – NYI 0
Third Period
The final frame marked the Islanders’ biggest push yet. The New Yorkers came out swinging and rang up a 7-0 SoG advantage in the first five minutes of the period. Yet even with the Stars leading by two, Varlamov is still grinding out a .923 save percentage. So…goalie duel it is, then.
As repetitive as it may be to keep calling out Oettinger’s performance, it’s kind of hard not to, under the circumstances. I mean, look at this save on Horvat. Look at it.
Roy basically started the trend of pulling the netminder early, and he took his own advice with about four minutes left in the game. Seguin got the dagger as well as the game-winner, slapping in the empty netter after knocking down a pass from Marchment.
For the period, and the game:
SHOTS: DAL 8 – NYI 14 (total: DAL 27 – NYI 33
FACE-OFF %: DAL 49.1% – NYI 50.9%
GOALS: DAL 3 – NYI 0
The Victory Green Gang has another home bout tomorrow as the Seattle Kraken make the trip down to Texas. Puck drop is at 7 PM CT. See you in the threads.