The Dallas Stars took their first lead and never trailed in a 4-2 Game 2 win against the Minnesota Wild at American Airlines Center on Monday.

Stars lines

• Hryckowian – Johnston – Rantanen
• Robertson – Duchene – Bourque
• Steel – Hyry – Benn
• Bäck – Faksa – Blackwell

• Lindell – Heiskanen
• Harley – Lundkvist
• Bichsel – Myers  

• Oettinger
• DeSmith

Scratches: Lyubushkin, Bunting, Erne, Petrovic, Capobianco, Bastian (injured), Hintz (injured), Seguin (SELTIR)

Top story

That’s the Jake Oettinger we remember.

How good was Oettinger in this game? I mean, without him playing lights out, Minnesota probably goes into the first intermission with a one or two-goal lead.

I know fans get frustrated that we don’t always see that version of Oettinger. He can have an off night or two, and has not had his best stastical season. But that game is why they spent $66 million to lock him up for eight years. He can steal a game. When he is on, he’s a top-five goalie in the NHL.

And tonight, he was on.

“He’s just an unbelievable goalie,” Wyatt Johnston said. “He was awesome tonight. Made so many huge saves. It was obviously a big win for the team and, obviously, it was great to help try to get him the win.”

Oettinger stopped 28 of 30 in the game. But it was the types of saves he was making that made this game special.

Sliding left to right and making a split save. Robbing Matt Boldy with the glove on what looked like an open net. His movement was clean, he was reading the game well in front of him, and he cleaned up some plays by holding onto pucks and allowing his team to settle down when they got a bit scrambly.

If Dallas is going to win this series, they need some of that Oettinger. I don’t think they need him to steal all the games they win, or anything like that. But they need him to be as close to his A-game as possible. He certainly was tonight.

Live game notebook

Period 1

• Mats Zuccarello is out tonight. He finished Game 1 and skated this morning. Dallas got blown out in Game 1, has home ice, and is playing agaisnt a team without a key offensive player. They have to find a way to win this game.
• Mikko Rantanen took a pass at center ice, got puck jacked, then stopped his feet and reached with his stick. That’s his third minor penalty in four periods of this series, and none of them were in the Dallas end or necessary.
• Stars kill it off. That’s huge early in this one.
• Oettinger makes a HUGE save on a broken play in the slot, and almost immediately, they finally get some puck luck when Johnston’s shot hits the end boards and banks off Jesper Wallstedt’s glove and in. Huge goal that Dallas really needed.

• 4-on-4 seems to certainly favor the Wild. They will play four aside now after Jamie Benn and Zach Bogosian both go off.
• And that is exactly why 4-on-4 favors Minnesota. Their defensemen are too mobile. Jason Robertson makes a good read at the blue line, but when trying to turn it up the other way, he loses the battle. Brock Faber skates in, cuts to the middle, and roofs a shot off the pad of Oettinger. Filthy.

• Colin Blackwell (5-foot-8 maybe) laid a MASSIVE open-ice hit on Yakov Trenin (6-foot-2). It was a clean hit on a hospital pass from Bogosian. Trenin stayed down and left the game holding his face. He did not return. Marcus Foligno tried to fight Blackwell, but he wasn’t having it.

• Dallas has to find a way to put up more resistance around its own net. Oettinger has been fantastic, but the Stars have gotten consistently beaten to their own net and then outmuscled when the puck gets there. Can’t ask Oettinger to make that many point-blank saves.

Stars 1, Wild 1

Period 2

• The intensity has picked up in a hurry in this game.
• Oettinger makes another good glove save.
• Rantanen makes his first big play of the series, playing a perfect give-and-go with Matt Duchene off the rush on a power play. Duchene then goes into a massive jumping celebration, Rantanen bumps Joel Eriksson Ek from behind, and chaos takes over. Somehow, Dallas ends up shorthanded. But they have the lead.

• Rantanen is high-event hockey.
• Minnesota has controlled play since the Duchene goal.
• Penalties galore. This is what we thought we’d see in Game 1. Teams don’t like each other.
• Marcus Foligno went head-hunting on Jason Robertson, barely missed, and went flying into his own bench.
• Now, Thomas Harley interferes with Marcus Foligno, and Foligno grabs Harley’s head, pushes it into the corner boards by the Minnesota bench, and then slams it into the ice. He gets a double minor for roughing. Harley gets a minor for interference. And once again, all hell breaks loose. The Justin Hryckowian we all love is back to chirping and hand signals.

• Cannot wait for this third period. Dallas with nearly a full power play to work with.

Stars 2, Wild 1

Period 3

• Perfect kill for Minnesota, then Faber clears a puck out of play for delay of game. Wild coach John Hynes smartly delays making a change, then successfully challenges that the puck hit Mavrik Bourque’s stick on the way out. It did. Even strength. Huge call.
• Bourque did a great job not giving up once he got tied up in front, wins the battle, and gets a tip on net.
• Arttu Hyry has really played well tonight. Not only is he making the right play, but he looks all too composed for a rookie playing his first Stanley Cup Playoff game. That didn’t surprise Stars coach Glen Gulutzan or his team one bit.

“We didn’t put him in there on a whim,” Gulutzan said. “We got to watch him for 20 games… This is a good hockey player. It’s his first game. I thought he was one of our better players. Poise wise, stick wise, defense wise, even offensively. We knew that kind of in training camp, and just with the roster… But, coming in in this scenario, he looked very good.”

• Nick Foligno just went schoolyard puck, banking it off the back of the net to himself. Nearly set up Michael McCarron in front.
• Felt like Robertson was going to have a moment in this game… Now, he did. After a clean faceoff win, Nils Lundkvist rips a wrister, and Robertson wins a battle to tip it down and in. Just look at the celly to see how big a goal that was.

• Minnesota makes it clear this game is not over. They came out with a huge shift right after the Robertson goal.
• After a scramble and another huge save by Oettinger, Faber grabs his own rebound and makes it 3-2 from the slot. Rantanen does not look fully healthy at all. He could barely move on that shift.

• This game is not over. Lots of time left.
• Robertson breaks his stick, tries to push Hughes at the blue line, grabs another stick from the bench (my guess is Rantanen’s — I confirmed it was with the equipment staff), blocks a shot with his back, then tries to go 1-on-1 the other way. This game is awesome.
• Rantanen just juggled a puck three times, including once tossing it over the defenseman on the rush.
• Dallas gets called for too many men on the ice with just under four minutes to go.
• Stars killed it off. And now Minnesota can’t get the goalie off, and they are called for too many men. This game has had everything.
• Johnston sends a backhand chip all the way down the ice, Hughes slows up thinking it’s going wide for icing, then tries to speed up as the puck starts to spin left up on end and goes in. Wacky end to a wacky game. This series is tied 1-1.

Final: Stars 4, Wild 2

Quotable

Stars coach Glen Gulutzan on the series moving forward

“I can’t see it going back. I think it’s just going to stay like this as we go forward. That’s what I believe… It’s probably going to stay like this the whole time… I’ve seen these things, they can get wonky when it’s this close and there’s this much energy. But I think the energy will stay the same, for sure.”