Oettinger, Stars hand Coyotes 15th straight road loss

DALLAS --Jake Oettinger made 33 saves for the Dallas Stars, who handed the Arizona Coyotes their 15th straight road loss with a 4-0 win at American Airlines Center on Saturday.

"[Shutouts are] hard to come by in this league," Oettinger said. "The guys played to the last minute, which is obviously nice for me. [It] shows they care, it shows the type of guys in the room. We're up 4-0 and guys are blocking shots and doing things the right way to finish it for us."
It was Oettinger's fourth shutout of the season and second in less than a week after he made 27 saves in a 4-0 win against the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday.
"Jake is playing amazing," Dallas forward Radek Faksa said. "He's one of the best goalies in the League. [He's] so hot now it's even hard to score on him in practice."

Faksa scored twice, and Miro Heiskanen had two assists for the Stars (28-13-7), who have won three of their past four games, including 4-0 against the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday. Scott Wedgewood made 34 saves.
"[Oettinger] and [Wedgewood] in the back, and then our [defense] corps is awesome, but we've got to help out too as forwards," Dallas forward Fredrik Olofsson said. "[Oettinger] had a couple of sweaty saves, too, so we've got a couple of things to clean up of course, but we feel great with either one in net."
Connor Ingram made 35 saves for the Coyotes (14-27-5), who have not won a road game since defeating the Carolina Hurricanes 4-0 on Nov. 23 (0-13-2).
"We've got to raise our level of play," Arizona defenseman Patrik Nemeth said. "Desperation and compete level, we saw stretches of that during this game, but it's not enough to do it for a few stretches here and there. We have to bring that for 60 minutes."

Faksa scored on a rebound to give Dallas a 1-0 lead at 2:36 of the first period shortly after making a diving play to keep the puck in the offensive zone.
"The last two games I've tried to be around the net more," Faksa said. "Just trying to read the rebound. Having both goals there came from a good forecheck. I think the forecheck was the key factor."
Benn made it 2-0 at 4:52 when he redirected in a centering pass from Jason Robertson on a power play.
Faksa extended it to 3-0 at 13:17, lifting in a rebound with his backhand near the right post. It is Faksa's first multigoal game since Nov. 5, 2019.
"The man comes and plays as honest a game as you can play every night and does a lot of heavy lifting with unheralded work: face-offs, penalty killing, blocking shots," Stars coach Peter DeBoer said. "You always like to see those guys get rewarded."

Wyatt Johnston pushed it to 4-0 at 14:32 of the second period, redirecting a centering pass by Heiskanen in the slot.
"I don't think our intensity level was where it needed to be, and it wasn't to good enough standards," Nemeth said. "We have to start with that, and other things come after you do that work."
Johnston's goal came shortly after Oettinger stopped Michael Carcone on a breakaway at 12:03.
"We had great chances, and our power play generated good chances," Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. "We had good possession and had a few shots deflected. We threw a little bit of everything at [Oettinger]. We had breakaways, odd-man rushes and some different attempts, but [Oettinger] stood up big. That's the story of the game at the end of the day."
NOTES:Faksa has three goals in his past three games following a 25-game goal drought. ... Benn extended his point streak to five games (three goals, two assists). … Heiskanen extended his assist streak to five games (eight assists). He has three multiassist games during the streak. … Robertson has 100 assists in 176 NHL games, the fourth-fewest needed to reach the milestone in Stars/Minnesota North Stars history, behind Bobby Smith (141), Tim Young (144) and Neal Broten (146). ... Arizona has not won a game against a Central Division team on the road this season.