DALLAS — Fueled by a brilliant performance from netminder Jake Oettinger and Mason Marchment’s go-ahead goal, the Dallas Stars have evened up their Western Conference Finals Series with the Oilers.
The series now shifts north of the border to Edmonton, capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Hockey-crazed only begins to describe the fanbase here, which is yearning for their first Stanley Cup title since 1990.
Those fans will be in full force tonight at Rogers Place for Game 3 of the series.
Here are three things to watch for as the Stars make a bid to take their first series lead in the Western Conference Final.
Road Warriors
I’ve been listening to sports talk radio here in Edmonton, and there’s a perception locally that the Stars may have got some home-cooking from the officials. I don’t buy it, but it’s an understandable fan reaction and will only add to the electricity from the fans in game 3.
Job No. 1 for the Stars will be to weather the initial emotional storm. The Oilers will get extra juice from their crowd and the Stars must be prepared. And there’s no reason they shouldn’t be.
Dallas has thrived on the road all season. They own the league-best regular season road-record and they're 5-1 so far in the playoffs. The Stars won three straight in Colorado to win that series, so they shouldn't be phased here tonight as they try to edge in front of this one.
Jake Oettinger
Oettinger played perhaps his best period in the playoffs so far in the first period of Game 2. After the Stars took the early lead, Edmonton responded less than a minute later to tie the game. But after that, Oettinger transformed into a brick wall.
He faced 16 shots in that first period and the only reason the Stars had a chance to win it was because of his brilliance. Several of those first period saves were on high danger scoring chances, making the effort that much more remarkable.
Special Teams
There’s good and bad here. Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. The Stars have yet to score a power play goal and they’ve had six chances so far in the series. And in a couple of those opportunities, it was clear they struggled just to get organized.
There’s a little spin that Stars fans would appreciate on this point: If Jason Robertson’s shot in overtime of Game 1 would have hit less than a centimeter to the left, Dallas would have scored on that power play, and the complexion of the series could be completely different.
Here’s the great news for Stars fans, though: They’ve kept Edmonton’s lethal power play off the score sheet too. Most importantly, they’ve limited their chances by only committing three penalties in the first two games of the series. Not allowing them to score is a substantial point, too, because the Oilers power play is tops in the league in the playoffs at 15 power play goals in 14 playoff games.