Stars found their rhythm to salvage split at home
The Dallas Stars are no strangers to getting punched in the mount in Game 1 of a playoff series.
That happened again on Saturday in their highly-anticipated first-round series against the Minnesota Wild, who walked into American Airlines Center and exited with a dominant 6-1 victory to take control.
The Stars are also used to overcoming series-opening defeats, and they took the first step toward doing so in Game 2 on Monday, when they survived a two-goal game by Brock Faber to beat Minnesota 4-2 and level the series heading back to St. Paul.
On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed the importance of Dallas’ ability to bounce back after a disastrous first game thanks to strong performances from Wyatt Johnston and goaltender Jake Oettinger.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The Dallas Stars, they managed to salvage the split on home ice. They bounced back I’ll say pretty nicely coming off of that Game 1 blowout loss at the hands of the Minnesota Wild. It was two goals from Wyatt Johnston, although one of them was obviously into the empty net. Jake Oettinger got the first star of the game with a ,933 save percentage, and those two names right there are the big positives that I’m pulling out of this one from Dallas. You got the split, you got the goaltending. We talked yesterday on the show about Jake Oettinger and that five-game losing streak… last year’s playoffs ended really rough for both Johnston and Oettinger. Johnston, last year, only had four goals in the entire postseason. For Dallas to get key performances from those two guys specifically, I feel like that has them it’s got to have them feeling a little bit better going into Game 3.
Carter Hutton: I think that’s a big takeaway, too. I think the Jake Oettinger one’s the biggest one, and it wasn’t just like he was steady in that game. He made a couple big-time saves, a couple big-time glove saves that like impact your team. When you’re coming off a bad game, what I will say is as a goalie like a couple initial saves or a big one gets you right back into a rhythm… I think Jake Oettinger did a good job of getting to his game right away, and I think that was an important factor in this one where the Minnesota Wild look good, but that looked like the Dallas Stars team we’ve come to know, and it felt like a must-win for them, and they found a way to get it done. You look at Duchene, Robertson, Wyatt Johnson those guys finding their rhythm, that can be very impactful when you start to head up to Minnesota and you go there try to get a split, and now it’s on home ice. And Dallas is a team I spent five years in the Central Division, Dallas is a hard rink to play in. I find playing Dallas Stars, even back in the day, that rink just closes in on you and there’s a ton of good energy there.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…