Oettinger makes 32 saves, Stars shut out Wild

DALLAS -- Jake Oettinger made 32 saves to help the Dallas Stars shut out the Minnesota Wild 3-0 at American Airlines Center on Monday.

It was Oettinger's second shutout this season and 12th in the NHL.

“I love playing against those guys. People from all over, your hometown, are going to be tuning in. Just fun to play well against those guys. Guys have always played good for me against them, they help me out. They know how important these games are for me,” said Oettinger, who is from Lakeville, Minnesota. “It takes a lot of good bounces [to get a shutout].

"Casey \[DeSmith\] and I both have had some bad bounces in games where we could have had shutouts, we could have had better nights, and you don’t get the bounces. So, when you get the bounces to go your way, it’s fun.”

Wyatt Johnston, Matt Duchene, and Mason Marchment scored, and Roope Hintz had two assists for Dallas (45-21-4), which has points in five straight games (3-0-2).

The Stars moved six points back of the Winnipeg Jets for first place in the Central Division with one game in hand.

“You can tell when [Oettinger]’s feeling it and dialed in like that. He’s got that swagger,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “You can just tell. They looked like they could shoot all night and he wasn’t going to let anything in. When he’s got that feel, that’s obviously a really good feeling on our bench.”

Filip Gustavsson made 26 saves for Minnesota (40-26-5), which had won three straight and remained four points ahead of the St. Louis Blues for the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference with one game in hand.

“I thought we played a really hard game. I thought our structure was really sound. I thought we played the style of game that you need to do to play against [Dallas]. Unfortunately, we didn’t get rewarded on the score sheet,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said. “We had a lot of good looks. I thought Oettinger played really well, came up big when he needed to for them. Couldn’t find a way to break through. Overall, it’s one of those ones where you feel like you deserve better, but we didn’t get it.”

Gustavsson kept the game scoreless late in the first period when he made a well-executed poke check on Dallas forward Mikko Rantanen on a breakaway.

Oettinger responded at 1:55 of the second period by making a key glove save in the dying seconds of a Wild power play.

“We had our looks. At the end of the day, [Oettinger] is a good goalie and made some big stops,” Minnesota defenseman Zach Bogosian said. “We had quite a few chances there in the third right around the blue paint, but we just couldn’t bang it home tonight, but we showed each other that if we shoot the puck and get bodies in front of bodies, it makes it tough on them. We just have to continue doing that.”

Johnston gave the Stars a 1-0 lead at 15:01 of the second when he deflected a Thomas Harley point shot on the power play.

“It’s trying to find the angle, find the open ice. It’s something we talked about before the face-off, looking for that,” Johnston said. “[Harley] obviously did a great job of getting to the middle of the ice and opening up some options. For me, it’s just finding that open ice and giving him a target. He hit my blade perfectly.”

Duchene extended the lead to 2-0 at 15:59 on a wrist shot from the left face-off circle with Jamie Benn screening Gustavsson.

“They’re a good team so they’re going to create chances every now and then. I thought most of the time we did well. Obviously, a couple of things we can clean up defensively as well,” Rantanen said. “Offensively, we can try to work a little bit tighter and try to create a little bit more.”

Marchment scored into the empty net at 19:17 of the third period for the 3-0 final.

“We are just focused on what’s going on in our room. I think if you are standings watching, we can only control what we can control, so we are worried about what’s going on in this room,” Bogosian said.

NOTES: Rantanen was hit by a deflected puck in the face in the second period but returned to the game wearing a bubble face shield. ... Minnesota defenseman Declan Chisholm was injured blocking a shot and did not play in the second half of the game, with his last shift coming at 11:19 of the second period. There was no update on his status postgame.