The Stars had the kind of night that can shake a room.
Dallas was ripped apart 8-3 by the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday at American Airlines Center, the first time the Stars have given up eight goals since November 2016. The loss was followed by a long team meeting as the group tried to sort through problems that have started creeping into its game.
Jake Oettinger took the brunt of it in net, allowing six goals on 27 shots before getting pulled in the third period. Afterward, he didn’t hide from it.
“It’s shocking, obviously uncharacteristic of us,” said goalie Jake Oettinger, who allowed six goals on 27 shots before being pulled in the third period. “It’s not good enough and every guy needs to be better, including myself.”
Coach Glen Gulutzan said the collapse went beyond one player, though he also made clear the team didn’t get the stops it needed.
“We never got any saves,” Gulutzan said.
That was a tough line to hear given Oettinger’s recent stretch. He is 4-2-0 in his past six starts, but that run has come with a 3.90 goals against average and an .842 save percentage. Earlier this season, he was 5-2-1 with a 1.23 GAA and .939 save percentage.
“It wasn’t his best game,” Gulutzan said. “We’ve got other guys in that boat, but certainly it wasn’t his best game. The whole group has to get better.”
The Stars actually opened well. Home starts were an issue last season, and the team had talked about fixing that.
Dallas jumped out to a 2-0 lead, then watched Winnipeg pull even just seven minutes into the second period. The Stars answered with David Perron’s first goal as a Star to go back ahead 3-2, but that was where the night turned hard.
Winnipeg scored three times in the next six minutes, including a goal in the final eight seconds of the second period, and Dallas never recovered. Gulutzan called it a mental meltdown, and said the response after the Jets’ goals was exactly the wrong one.
“I think when they scored, we had the mindset of we had to get it back, and that’s the wrong mindset,” Gulutzan said. “You’ve got to try to lock it down, get a little tighter in your mind.”
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Krys is not headed straight into the Dallas lineup, though, as the next step in his return sends him to the Texas Stars in the AHL. It is the kind of transaction that does not usually grab headlines, but for the Stars it keeps a development path open and gives the club another healthy body in the system while it sorts out the bigger picture on the back end. [Read more 🡒]