First Shift \ud83c\udfd2<\/p>\n
One of the reasons the Stars have been so good on the road \u2013 and so good on the second night of back-to-back games \u2013 has been their goaltending.<\/p>\n
Dallas currently boasts a 1.67 goals against average, the best in the league. That\u2019s no surprise when you consider they were second in GAA across an 82-game schedule last year. It\u2019s what Jake Oettinger<\/a> and Casey DeSmith<\/a> have helped the Stars become.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s huge,\u201d said forward Seguin. \u201cWe\u2019ve got great goaltending and that means we\u2019re in every game. That\u2019s a great feeling, because you know it\u2019s going to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n Oettinger was named the NHL\u2019s Second Star of the Week after posting two shutouts last week. He credited his teammates with selling out to block shots and keeping the front of the net clean.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a team effort,\u201d he said. \u201cIt feels great when you see your guys working so hard for you. It helps a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Head coach Glen Gulutzan said Oettinger\u2019s intensity has been a key.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cJust the way he\u2019s seeing the puck,\u201d Gulutzan said before Tuesday\u2019s game. \u201cFinding pucks through traffic. I think when he\u2019s at his best, even last year when I saw him, I made a comment to Reeser [goaltending coach Jeff Reese]: Just reading the play, especially when there\u2019s traffic, and finding those pucks. I think he\u2019s done a great job with that.\u201d<\/p>\n Oettinger said he has felt good on the ice.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s awesome, it\u2019s like a flow, like not thinking about anything,\u201d Oettinger said. \u201cFor me, I always find I feel like a little kid. I\u2019m having fun. I feel like I\u2019m playing outside on an outdoor rink, and you\u2019re just battling and having a blast.\u201d<\/p>\n DeSmith said he adopts a similar attitude.<\/p>\n \u201cI think if you just follow your program and prepare, the rest takes care of itself,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a backup, I have to be ready for anything, so it helps to just live day-to-day. That\u2019s really been the key for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First Shift \ud83c\udfd2 One of the reasons the Stars have been so good on the road \u2013 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-465854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}