JAKE OETTINGER FELT INVINCIBLE.
The Dallas Stars in game 7 overtime with The Calgary Flame in the first round of last season’s knockout round. They were there for Oettinger, the second-year goalkeeper, who had saved 208 of the 218 shots he had faced in the previous six games.
The final against the Flames was the beginning of an excellent streak: saving 64 of 66 shots on goal in the first extra time to become only the second goalkeeper to make 60 or more saves in Game 7 since 1995, when the index was first tracked.
“You were so absorbed in what you were doing,” Oettinger recalls. “You feel like you’re never going to be scoring.”
Johnny Gaudreau made the 67th shot Oettinger faced, hurling the ball into the net from an odd angle to the right of the keeper. It flew over Oettinger’s shoulder and behind him at 15:09 of extra time. Loud horns. Flashing red light. The bench in Calgary is empty. The Stars have been eliminated.
Oettinger is unlikely to witness his historic attempt again in the off-season, whatever the outcome. “I’ve seen the highlights but I haven’t seen the whole thing,” he said. “If we win that game? Yes, I watched it.”
Looking back at the playoffs, Dallas general manager Jim Nill still chuckles at the irony: What some see as the Stars’ biggest playoff liability has become their biggest asset.
“When we started the series, perhaps one of the biggest question marks we had was that we had our first young goalkeeper in the Stanley Cup play-offs,” Nill said. “This resume wasn’t very long. How would he handle it? We look back at it now, and I’ve never seen a young man enjoy the moment as much as he did.
Oettinger remained in the net after Gaudreau’s extra-time goal. Captain of the stars Jamie Benn skating to his keeper, still on his knees, to comfort him.
“Without him, we wouldn’t even be close to extra time or have a chance to win,” Benn said. “He’s an extraordinary young goalkeeper. He’s going to be a great for this organization for a long time.”
The future is now for Oettinger and Dallas. With a new 3-year contract in hand, the 23-year-old goalkeeper entered the 2022-23 season for the first time at the top of the Stars depth rankings.
“He’s our number one goalkeeper,” Nill said. “He took that opportunity. It’s not like you come in a season and say, ‘we’ll give it to you.” No, he got it. “
FIRST NILL SAW Oettinger with the US national development team in Detroit.
“We’ve known him since he was 16,” Nill said. “When you play for the US in these tournaments, you’re a pretty good player. So we got to know him and that’s why we moved a little bit higher to pick him. .”
Dallas had a third overall pick in the 2017 NHL draft, choosing Miro Heiskanen. But when Nill saw Oettinger still on the table late in the first round – no goalkeeper drafted yet – he submitted his 29th overall pick (from Anaheim) and the third round to Chicago for the 26th overall pick and Oettinger selected.
They respect his character. They love his size. The Oettinger is listed at 6-foot-5, and nothing about that is generous.
“It’s weird. Some guys look tall and they’re lanky. You come next to him, and he’s tall and sized,” Nill said.
After Oettinger and Ben Bishop, who are placed at 6 foot-7, are the Stars officially “out” when it comes to their scoring ability?
Nill laughed. “We were lucky that way,” he said. “But that’s also why Bishop has been such a great mentor to him.”
Oettinger joined the Stars in 2019 after three seasons with Boston University. His development path has twists and turns.
He played 38 games with the AHL Texas Stars in 2019-20 before the COVID pandemic shut down sports. His NHL debut was in the Western Conference “bubble” playoffs. Oettinger was the Stars’ third string insurance scorer. Bishop is then wounded and Oettinger finds himself assisting Anton Khudobin. His NHL debut came in a relief 17 minutes ago Vegas Golden Knights in the final round of the Western Conference. He also had 19 minutes in game 3 of the Stanley Cup final against Tampa Bay Lightning. In total, Oettinger faced eight shots and made eight saves.
Bishop’s status for the 2020-21 season has affected Oettinger. The Stars hope former champion Vezina Trophy can return, but Bishop has missed the whole season. Oettinger played 29 games against Khudobin, 11-8-7 with a 911 save rate. Analyticaly, he outperformed Khudobin, the sub-substitute. Oettinger has saved 2.97 goals above average.
But at the start of the 2021-22 season, Oettinger was shocked to find himself back in the AHL, as the Stars signed free agent Braden Holtby and Khudobin as their scorers. (Bishop, who hasn’t seen the tape since August 2020, Officially Retired in December 2021.)
Nill said it was a call they made based on trying to get more rep for Oettinger. “We knew we had to bring him down as a teenager,” GM said. “He wasn’t happy about that. But looking back, it was probably the best thing for him.”
Oettinger returned to the NHL club on November 16, 2021. He gradually dominated, starting 46 games, winning 30 of them and hitting a savings rate of .914. He ended the season with a win in five of the seven that started before his superb streak against the Flames.
The Calgary series changed everything for Oettinger, who could feel his shares rise significantly with colleagues around the NHL following that performance.
“I can feel a little bit,” he said. “Everyone’s watching the playoffs.”
HOCKEY NICKNAMES NO precision is complicated, so it’s no surprise that Oettinger is “Otter”. What? To be Surprising: The goalkeeper has his own mascot.
“My guy plays a cartoon of a little otter guy,” says Oettinger. “Last year I threw him a little cowboy hat.”
Goalkeeper mask designer David Gunnarsson created an animated otter that has adorned some of Oettinger’s masks.
“I thought, this might be like my thing,” Oettinger said.
Last season, it was a cowboy otter. This season, it’s a golf otter, complete with gloves and clubs.
The otter meme goes beyond the mask for Oettinger. Cartoon otters have appeared on T-shirts. The otter has become a way for fans to celebrate him on social media. “When I have a good game, people tweet out a GIF with otters,” he said.
I did one thing #TexasHockey #jakeottinger #otter @DallasStars pic.twitter.com/oUDb67Ozm4
Opening night yet? (@StarsCountdown) May 20, 2022
How many otters Oettinger gets this season will depend on how he handles to become No. 1. Stopping more than 60 pucks in a single game has a different morale to it. getting a team back after the season in games is over $60. Someone who makes him feel invincible. The other made him feel indispensable.
“I think for me, this season will have a lot of mental aspects,” he said. “I’ve never come in as No. 1. I’m just going to have to face … not ‘pressure’, but more responsibility, obviously.”
The Stars are a team with a veteran core – Benn, Tyler Seguin, Joe Pavelski – complemented by a collection of young stars under the age of 24, such as Heiskanen, Jason Robertson and Oettinger. The goalkeeper believes he will create the foundation for that squad to develop.
“I will depend on me to get this team back into the knockout stages,” he said. “It’s a lot of responsibility. But that’s what I signed up for.”
Oettinger signed something else during the season: a three-year, $4 million contract over the annual salary cap.
Nill says the Calgary series doesn’t necessarily complicate those negotiations. For all the trust he has in Oettinger, this is still a 23-year-old goalkeeper with two seasons and 77 games recorded.
“He did a great job on our job for the year, but the body of the job was a short timeframe,” Nill said.
Their contract negotiations lasted until the end of the summer. Dallas could go higher than the $3.979 million AAV Flyers put out Carter Hart in August 2021 after 101 NHL games?
On September 1, Stars struck a $4 million AAV deal with Oettinger, a freelance employee restricted when the contract expires in 2025.
“We accomplished something. It could be a lot for a player who has played that number of games. But he deserves it,” Nill said. “He’s earned it based on who he is and knowing how his teammates want to play for him – that tells you something.
“He is a player of high quality. And he is our future, going forward.”
