Heika's Take: Stars keep finding ways to win, this time 1-0 in a shootout

The story of Jake Oettinger continues to get more interesting.
The same goes for his team.
Oettinger, the 23-year-old goalie who started this season in the minors, stopped 34 shots Friday en route to a 1-0 shootout win against the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center. His team, meanwhile, won its sixth straight game on the road and moved into a wild card playoff spot in the Western Conference temporarily. (LA took the second wild card back after beating Vegas in overtime later that night).

That's a pretty good week in the middle of the season.
"He's on his game right now, and we need him," Stars coach Rick Bowness said. "He's making huge saves. Fleury made some phenomenal saves, but Jake made the big saves at the right time."
Oettinger stopped 46 shots in a 4-1 win against league-leading Colorado Tuesday, and that earned him the start Friday. Instead of panicking or wobbling, though, he embraced the challenge and faced off against Marc-Andre Fleury, who also pitched a shutout through 65 minutes of hockey.
The drama was beautiful, and when you consider that Oettinger last season went 3-7 in games that went past regulation, that was a nagging issue for him. This year, he's 3-0, helping push his record to 15-5-0. On Friday, he was very good during the opening 60 minutes, but then was spectacular in overtime, stopping shots, handling the puck, and being a calm presence at a time of chaos.
In the shootout, he was almost perfect, and that allowed Jacob Peterson to score the game-winner as the sixth Dallas shooter.
"It's awesome," Oettinger said of the transformation. "Last year, I was pretty tough to watch in the shootout, but it's just practice and changing my philosophy a little bit."

Among the changes Oettinger had been making of late is he's simply not going to let the pressure of the moment get to him.
"For me, lately, I'm just going with the flow," Oettinger said. "Nothing is in my head, really, I'm just playing. That's when goalies are at their best. For me, it's just getting in the right frame of mind and going out and playing and having fun."
He said he sort of models that after watching Fleury, who was one of his heroes growing up. His dad and stepmom came down from Minnesota to see the game, and Oettinger said one of the gifts he received from his stepmom when he was young was a Fleury "Fathead" that you hang on the wall.
"In high school, I was obsessed with him." Oettinger said.
The young goalie collects sticks from the all-time greats, so he asked the equipment guys to get one from Fleury before the game. Fleury obliged. If that all seems surreal as the two battled through 65 minutes of scoreless hockey, it is. But, as Oettinger said, he's just trying to go with the flow.
So when the Blackhawks had some great chances early, he was fine. And when they were held to the outside and he didn't see great chances, he was fine. And, then in overtime, when the puck was flying around and he left his net to play a puck up the right boards, he was fine.
"You trust your players," Bowness said.

As for Peterson, he was likewise fine. The 22-year-old rookie participate in his first NHL regular-season shootout, and said it happened pretty quickly. The two teams went through the first five shooters and were tied at 1-1. So when Bowness looked down the bench, he decided to trust his coaching instincts. Peterson scored on a shootout during the exhibition season (against Arizona in El Paso), and that seemed like a good omen.
"The mainstay are those four guys," Bowness said of Jason Robertson, Joe Pavelski, Tyler Seguin and Alexander Radulov. "And if you get that far down, then you go by your gut."
The memory of El Paso made him lean toward Peterson.
"He scored in El Paso in the exhibition, so you look down the bench and Fleury knows all of our guys, so throw somebody out there where he has no idea what he's going to do," Bowness said.

Peterson did, and that just adds more interest to the season. A Stars team that struggled on the road earlier has now won six straight away from home. A Stars team that was starting to fade in the playoff race has gone 9-3-0 in its past 12 games and is knocking on the doorstep for a playoff spot.
There's a long way to go, but the pieces do seem to be falling into place at a time when the Stars can really make a difference in their season.
"I think we just have been trying to play how we've been playing at home," center Roope Hintz said of the improved success on the road. "We kind of found a way in the last road trip we had, and I think we just have to play like that."

If they can continue to keep that up as they play nine of the next 13 games on the road, that would definitely make things a lot more interesting.
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heikais a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.