Jake Oettinger won a shutout for the Dallas Stars in their 2-0 victory against the Calgary Flames on Thursday, evening the series at 1-1.
In front of a sea of red at the sold-out Saddledome, Oettinger, 23, of Lakeville, Minnesota, stopped all 29 shots he faced.
“The only thing that counts is winning. “On the other hand, they have an outstanding goaltender, and we know the game will be competitive, so my margin for error is quite tiny,” Oettinger said.
On Saturday and Monday at the American Airlines Center, Joe Pavelski scored twice and Michael Raffl added an empty-net goal for the Stars in a best-of-seven conference quarterfinal series.
Tyler Toffoli, a forward with the Calgary Flames, said, “Our goal in Dallas was to win two games anyway, so this doesn’t really affect our mindset.”
On Tuesday, Calgary won Game 1 of the series 1-0, and Game 2 was another defensive struggle. In Thursday’s setback, Calgary’s Jacob Markstrom turned away 21 of 22 shots.
Calgary (50-21-11) won the Pacific Division, but Dallas (46-30-6) earned the top wild-card slot in the Western Conference.
The Flames outshot the Stars 12-7 in the third quarter, but Dallas did not allow any close-range opportunities.
As soon as Markstrom was replaced by another player, Raffl scored into an empty goal with 69 seconds left to play.
Darryl Sutter, head coach of the Calgary Flames, said, “I felt our top players took a significant number of shots from the outside.”
They must be closer to the goaltender.
In the second period, Calgary, who had been outplayed in the first, had more offence and a shot edge of 11-7.
The Flames, on the other hand, could not take advantage of the few rebound chances that Dallas goalkeeper Oettinger gave them.
They possess a formidable defensive corps. Johnny Gaudreau, a member of the Calgary Flames, commented, “I felt we had a lot of scoring opportunities tonight.”
“Their goalie performed well. We played well in their defensive zone, but we need to score, therefore I’m going to put the ball in the goal (starting with myself).
In attempt to generate more offence, Stars head coach Rick Bowness kept forwards Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin on different lines during the second and third periods of Game 1.
“There isn’t much room out there,” Bowness said. “Neither they nor we have a lot of space. Everything that you have must be earned.“
In the first forty minutes of Game 2, Dallas had 25 hits, compared to 20 in the first game, for a total of 36. Compared to the Stars’ eight giveaways, the Flames had 21.
In the first period, the visitors outshot Calgary 9-6 and stepped up their forecheck to keep Calgary from getting out of their own zone.
After going without a shot in Game 1, Pavelski scored the series-opening goal for the Stars at 7:47 of the first period on a defensive zone blunder by the Flames.
Inside the blue line, Noah Hanifin redirected the puck off the boards and into the stick of Jason Robertson. Pavelski’s deflection of Robertson’s shot over Markstrom’s glove știiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștiiștii, știiștii, ştiiştii, ştiiştii, ştiiştii, ştiiştii, ştiiştii,
A breakaway goal by Gaudreau was ruled offside 43 seconds after the puck was dropped.
A fight between Matthew Tkachuk and John Klingberg, who played for the Dallas Stars, started again when Tkachuk slammed Klingberg into a wall behind Calgary’s goal late in the first period of this game.
Following the disallowed goal by Gaudreau, Tkachuk hit Klingberg, who was sent to the penalty box for roughing. Both players were sent to the box.
In the first two games of the series, the Stars were kept scoreless on two power-play chances and went a combined 0-for-7.
The Flames were 0-for-3 with the man advantage on Thursday and have only scored once with the advantage in their first two games.
