Heika’s Take: Stars continue historic run, blow out Oilers for eighth straight win

It has been an asterisk in Stars history. A footnote, really.

That said, it had to be a little bit annoying that the franchise had never won more than seven games in a row. They had hit that mark six times in the past, but they could never get over the hump to eight. As a result, the Stars had the lowest winning streak record among all NHL franchises.

Seattle has won nine. Vegas has 10. Neither has been in the NHL for more than a decade. So why not more for the lads in Victory Green?

On Wednesday, they got more.

Dallas beat the Edmonton Oilers, 5-0, at American Airlines Center to win its eighth straight game. The Stars have been pretty dominant in this stretch, outscoring the opposition 34-11 and pushing their record to 48-19-9 (105 points), the best in the Western Conference and second in the NHL.

“There have been a lot of great teams in this organization over the years, so to have the longest win streak is pretty cool,” said goalie Jake Oettinger, who stopped 35 shots to post his second consecutive shutout (and the 10th of his career). “Hopefully, we can grow that as much as we can. It’s a great group of guys in here and a special group, and hopefully we can keep growing our game and get it to where we want it to be.”

The Stars have had some ups and downs this season, but they are peaking at the right time. They have games at Chicago on Saturday and Colorado on Sunday and are five points up on the Avalanche for first place in the Central Division, so finding a groove like this is fantastic timing.

“I thought it was a really good team effort,” said Stars coach Pete DeBoer. “I thought we worked at defending hard tonight. Forget the wins and the winning streak, I like the detail in our game. The wins are a byproduct of that, and it’s a great lesson. If you take care of those things, the results take care of themselves.”

Despite the final score, the game was actually quite tight, as both Oettinger and Oilers goalie Calvin Pickard came up with big save after big save. Dallas had a 1-0 lead at first intermission thanks to a really nice shift from the fourth line. Craig Smith helped force a turnover and fed Sam Steel, who found Radek Faksa driving to the net just 2:08 into the game.

The score would stay that way until the 13:18 mark of the second period when Miro Heiskanen found Tyler Seguin open in the left circle for a one-timer on the power play. It was a callback to Seguin goals of yesteryear and was his 23rd of the season. That made it 2-0, and showed just a few more cracks in the Oilers’ foundation. Wyatt Johnston scored out of the penalty box off nice passes from Thomas Harley and Faksa, and then Jamie Benn converted two nice passes from Logan Stankoven and Johnston to make it 4-0 with 1:18 left in the second period. On the very next shift, Steel scored to make it 5-0.

“I think our depth has carried us,” DeBoer said. “It was 12 months ago that everyone was describing us as a one-line team. You look at the scoresheet tonight and the fourth line was probably our best line.”

Faksa finished with a goal and two assists, Steel had a goal and an assist, and Smith had two assists.

In addition, Johnston became just the second player in franchise history to score 30 goals in a season before the age of 21. Benn added his 19th goal and will likely become the eight 20-goal scorer on the team, which would be another franchise record.

“I think the team is in a really good place,” Johnston said. “I think we can play even better, and I think we’re going to need to play better going into the playoffs. We want to keep building. We’re on a good streak right now, but we want to keep improving every game.”

A big reason for the recent run has been the play of Oettinger. The big goalie struggled earlier in the season, but he has been unbeatable in recent games. He allowed just one goal against Vancouver last Thursday and has posted the first back-to-back shutouts of his career (against Seattle and Edmonton). He was especially important early in the game when the high-flying Oilers were generating great scoring chances.

“It starts with our goalie,” DeBoer said. “I thought he was our best player. He was fantastic, and he was fantastic early in that game when we were a little tentative in the first 10 minutes. He had a couple of momentum-shifting saves in the middle of the game where it could have gotten a lot closer. He was our best player.”

And when that happens, the Stars seem to get on some pretty impressive winning streaks.

“It gives us a lot of confidence,” Johnston said of Oettinger’s play. “It feels pretty good when you have him back there. It’s pretty hard to lose games when he’s not giving up any goals.”

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.