Stars continue building in win against Avalanche

The Stars are taking a workmanlike attitude toward preseason hockey this year, and it seems to be paying off.

Dallas ground through a 3-1 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday at American Airlines Center. Goalie Jake Oettinger made his first appearance and made 9 saves on 10 shots, the power play pieced together a 1-for-5 night, and both Jason Robertson and Joe Pavelski found ways to score pretty goals. The win pushed Dallas to 4-0-1 in exhibition play, and provided just one more positive step in the path to the regular season opener next Thursday.

“I think every exhibition game you can get something out of,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “They’re a necessary evil. You’re trying to get through them without getting injured. You’re trying to get up to game speed. But at the same time, guys know that there aren’t points at stake, so it never feels great from a coaching perspective. You just have to take it for what it is. But I thought we got some good stuff out of tonight – for sure the power play, for sure Jake Oettinger getting his first taste of real live action.”

Oettinger looked solid in his first action since the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season. The 24-year-old goalie said he decided to spend less time on the ice this summer to make sure he is fresh for the season ahead. That’s why he’s wading into the preseason right now. He played 40 minutes on Tuesday and likely will get a full 60 minutes in one of the two remaining exhibition games.

“It was fun,” Oettinger said. “You can’t really simulate that in practice.”

Oettinger was tested early and then faced just 2 shots on goal in the second period, one of which was a shorthanded goal by Colorado. Scott Wedgewood entered in the third period and secured the win by stopping all 8 saves faced. Wedgewood has now played six periods this preseason and looks ready to go. Oettinger still could shake off a little more rust.

But that’s all part of the process.

“I’m just going to focus on the little details to keep my body in a good spot for the whole season,” Oettinger said. “I’m proud of the work I put in this summer. I feel very rested and fresh and really hungry to get going again. I feel like last year I learned a lot about the toll the season takes on you and the little stuff you need to do to feel healthy and fresh, especially come playoff time.”

Oettinger posted impressive numbers in 2022-23, going 37-11-11 while posting a 2.37 GAA and .919 save percentage in his first full season as a No. 1 goalie. However, he had a bit of a mixed bag in the playoffs. He carried the Stars to Game 6 of the Western Conference Final against Vegas, but he finished with a 10-9 record, a 3.06 GAA and an .895 save percentage. He allowed four or more goals in 6 of 19 starts.

“It was a huge learning experience,” Oettinger said. “You let in six goals and it doesn’t matter. You just turn it off and go right back in the next game. I had some great games and I had some games where I let in a lot of goals. I felt I was proud of the run that I put together. And now we all know that’s the expectation to get to that point in the season – to be one of the final teams standing. We were right there and we could have beat those guys. It just shows the expectations here.”

Oettinger is a big golfer and said he has used a lot of mental preparation you need for golf to make him a better goalie.

“It’s as tough or tougher than golf, mentally,” he said. “It’s kind of like the quarterback in football. You play great and you’re the best quarterback in the world. You play bad and you should get traded. That’s how it goes.”

He said he feels as though he’s handling the pressure better with each passing season.

“In today’s day and age with social media, you can beat yourself up if you let yourself go down that road,” he said. “The most important thing that I lean on is that whether I have a shutout or whether I let in five goals, the people that mean the most to me treat me the same way. That’s the only thing I care about.”

His teammates also supply plenty of support in front of him. Even though it was just a preseason game, veterans like Robertson, Pavelski and Craig Smith chipped in to help push the Stars over the finish line. Robertson made a spectacular move off a pass from Tyler Seguin to get the Stars their first goal late in the second period and even the score.

“You get used to him doing that,” DeBoer said. “You see it in practice. It’s an unbelievably skilled play to do at full speed in a game and he makes it look easy. He’s just a special player.”

The 24-year-old finished with nine shots on goal to help Dallas build a firm 30-18 advantage in the game. A lot of those shots came on the power play. Even so, Dallas was frustrated by the man advantage early on and looked out-of-sync at times.

But in the third period, Colorado’s Nate Clurman took a five-minute major for boarding Stars forward Radek Faksa, who had to leave the game with a cut on his head.

DeBoer said they would receive a better update on Faksa’s status on Wednesday. Dallas has already held out Roope Hintz and Wyatt Johnston just to be cautious with soreness, so Faksa might end up in that category as well.

The penalty allowed the Stars to dig further into their power play. And while it took over three minutes to break the Avalanche penalty kill, Pavelski found the upper corner in tight for what would turn out to be the game-winning goal.

“That last one definitely means a little bit – as much as they’re going to mean in preseason,” Pavelski said. “After a penalty like that on [Faksa], it was nice to see us get one. [The power play] probably wasn’t as clean or as pretty as we would have liked, but we had a couple of looks earlier where we snapped it around pretty good and didn’t get anything.”

Such is the way of exhibition hockey. You try to get all of your players to do enough good things to win the game and grow as you build towards opening night.

And so far, the Stars have been able to do just that.

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 Twitter @MikeHeika.