Heika’s Take: Oettinger shines bright as Stars dispatch Islanders in home opener

Jake Oettinger definitely gets by with a little help from his friends, but he doesn’t mind leading the way sometimes as well.

On Saturday, it was a little bit of both.

Oettinger and his teammates took turns leaning on each other, and in the end the 25-year-old goalie had his 11th career shutout in a 3-0 win over the New York Islanders. Oettinger stopped 33 shots, adding to the work he did in the season opener at Nashville on Thursday, and now Dallas is off to a 2-0-0 start.

“Jake was good. I liked our team game around him, too,” said Stars coach Pete DeBoer. “I didn’t think that he needed to do as much as he had to do in Nashville for us to win. I thought we were a little better around him. But he was key at key times.”

Oettinger said he had his share of good luck as well, getting some fortunate bounces and being saved by a couple of posts along the way. When that helps secure a shutout, it really hammers home the team aspect of his numbers, he said.

“It’s incredible. It’s something I don’t take for granted at all,” Oettinger said. “You need to get a little lucky and guys need to help you out. A lot of things need to go right.”

Even for a small sample size, that’s important. The game was a series of surges and rallies, and the Stars were able to capitalize on their opportunities. New York held a 12-6 advantage in shots on goal in the first period, but Dallas exited with a 1-0 lead. The line of Matt Duchene with Tyler Seguin and Mason Marchment did a great job of hunting the puck in the offensive zone and Marchment found Seguin in the slot for the first goal at 7:59 of the opening frame. It was a masterful shift for a group that DeBoer said was the team’s best line in the Nashville win. And when Seguin added an empty-netter later in the game, that gave the trio four goals in the first two games.

“Lots of experience last year,” Seguin said of the line sticking together from last season. “We love to communicate. We work with each other in the summer and it’s nice to see some rewards for that.”

The game was not without its challenges, though. The Islanders brought some toughness and drive, and finished with a 66-47 advantage in shot attempts. That meant Oettinger was busy once again, and he seemed to like the feeling. He is 11-1-1 in his career in October and embraces a fast start to the season.

“It’s a good record,” Oettinger said. “You just want to get the season going the right way. It’s a good start.”

Now, the Stars will try to keep that start going as backup Casey DeSmith gets his first action in a Stars uniform on Sunday against Seattle. Dallas will try to show just how much the “team” part of goaltending matters.

“We’re playing with fire a little bit,” Seguin said. “It’s got to be five or six posts the last two games. There’s a lot of things to clean up, but a lot of things fall on it’s early in the year and you get points by getting to your game the quickest and having a great goaltender, and that’s what has happened the first two games.”

The Stars lost defenseman Matt Dumba in the first period when he suffered a lower-body injury. He’s not expected to play Sunday and will be examined further on Monday. DeBoer said he would list Dumba as day-to-day for now. Veteran defenseman Brendan Smith is expected to jump in, and that will mean the team will reconfigure the defensive pairs. On Saturday, the coaching staff rode the big guns on D, as Miro Heiskanen played 25:28, Thomas Harley played 25:25 and Esa Lindell played 24:39. They will try to manage that with the team playing its third game in four nights, but you do what you have to do to win.

Dallas has been outshot in each of the first two games and also has lost some of the statistical battles in other areas, but the eye test says they are playing together as a team and they are ironing out the wrinkles early in the season. And getting two wins against playoff teams from last season helps deliver the hard messages with a spoonful of sugar.

“It definitely wasn’t perfect,” Benn said. “We’ve got things to improve on, but we got the two points. We’ll take the good and learn from some of the things that we can get better.”

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @MikeHeika.