With their season hanging in the balance Thursday night at American Airlines Arena, the Dallas Stars tried to fend off Connor McDavid and the high-flying Edmonton Oilers without their No. 1 goalie on the ice. And, no, Jake Oettinger wasn’t injured.
The 26-year-old goalie, considered to be among the best in the NHL, was pulled by Stars coach Peter DeBoer and replaced by veteran backup Casey DeSmith just 7:09 into the first period of the must-win Game 5 of the Western Conference Final. With the Stars already trailing the best-of-7 series 3-1, things got bad quickly on home ice Thursday when they fell behind 2-0, with Oettinger allowing two goals on two shots to start the game.
DeBoer called for a timeout, blew a gasket yelling at his players, and then, maybe, blew any chance of coming back against the Oilers when he yanked his star — no pun intended — goaltender and replaced him with one who hadn’t played in a month.
The veteran coach stood behind his shocking decision after the Stars were eliminated with a 6-3 loss in Game 5.
âWe had talked endlessly in this series about trying to play with a lead, and obviously we were in a 2-0 hole right away,â DeBoer explained. âI didnât take that lightly and I didnât blame it all on Jake, but the reality is, if you go back to last yearâs playoffs, heâs lost six of seven games to Edmonton. And we give up two goals on two shots in an elimination game. So, it was partly to spark our team and wake them up. And partly knowing that status quo had not been working, and thatâs a pretty big sample size.â
Ouch.
Coach and goalie have some serious fence-mending to do before training camp begins in September.
If DeBoer had left it at that he was simply trying to spark the Stars with this bold move, well, OK. But to lay it out there and trash your goalie, who was pretty much your best player throughout the season and Stanley Cup Playoffs, that’s something else.
Oettinger didn’t speak to the media postgame. But his teammates had his back.
âItâs unacceptable for us to hang him out like that,â forward Jason Robertson said. âThe whole playoffs, heâs been our guy, the whole season. Just unacceptable from us.â
Related: Panthers rally past Hurricanes 5-3 in Game 5, return to Stanley Cup Final again: takeaways
Stunning decision by Stars coach likely sealed their fate in West Final
Slow starts were an issue all postseason for the Stars. They allowed the first goal in 15 of their 18 playoff games this spring, a stunning statistic when you consider that they still reached the conference final. Oettinger started each of those 18 games in goal, so he takes some blame for Dallas consistently falling behind. But, to be fair, his outstanding play was a major reason why the Stars were able to regroup and win so often after these poor starts.
And it wasn’t all on the goalie by any means. Time and again, the Stars failed to start on time. Thursday was just the latest example. Rookie Mavrik Bourque took a mind-numbingly careless high-sticking penalty 1:47 into the game, and the Oilers converted for a power-play goal by Corey Perry, who was left wide open in front of Oettinger, 44 seconds later.
The Stars defense broke down again at 7:09, allowing Mattias Janmark to get behind everyone, accept a Victor Arvidsson feed, break in all alone, and beat Oettinger through the pads for the Oilers second goal on as many shots.
That’s when DeBoer popped his cork and pulled his goalie. The move didn’t pay off. DeSmith was all out of sorts allowing a Jeff Skinner goal less than a minute later at 8:07 and it was 3-0.
âWe were not ready,â forward Mikko Rantanen said. âWe were not helping Jake at all on the first two goals. Thatâs on us and not on Jake.â
Though the Stars showed some fight and twice battled back to within a goal, that three-goal deficit was impossible to completely erase. So, for the third straight season, they were eliminated in the Western Conference Final.
As for DeBoer’s postgame comments, he wasn’t exactly wrong about Oettinger’s numbers and record against the Oilers his past seven starts against them in the 2024 and 2025 conference finals. Last year, the Stars blew a 2-1 series lead and lost in six games to the Oilers. This year, they staged a wild rally to win Game 1 and then lost four straight.
As for Oettinger, he begins a lucrative eight-year, $66 million contract with an $8.25 million average annual value next season. He has 30+ wins in four straight seasons and will challenge Connor Hellebuyck to be the No. 1 goalie for the United States at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.
So, he’s not going anywhere.
DeBoer? His future is less clear after this controversial decision and biting postgame commentary, despite leading three different teams to the conference finals in his past six seasons as an NHL coach.
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