LAKEVILLE, Minn. — You would have thought Chris Oettinger spent his Saturday stressed over the game happening that night 925 miles south.
In Dallas, his son Jake was readying to play goal for the Dallas Stars in Game 1 of their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series against the Minnesota Wild.
But Chris had something else just as important on his mind.
“I have to pitch in a Wiffle ball game, and it’s 37 and blustery out,” Chris said, laughing.
Thomas, Jake Oettinger’s youngest sibling, was turning 12 that day, and the family was hosting a birthday party at Miracle League Park.
Thomas Oettinger’s birthday Wiffle ball game was an Oettinger family priority Saturday. (Courtesy of the Oettinger family)
Similarly, you’d think Kelly Oettinger, Jake’s stepmom, would have been stressed over the hockey game she and her family planned to watch later that day. But she had to leave for Rochester to take Jake’s 14-year-old sister, Kendall, to a dance competition.
“Playoff hockey or no playoff hockey, all of the stuff that we would normally do still takes place,” Chris told The Athletic as he, believe it or not, let an incoming call from Jake go to voicemail. “We do a little pregame hype session here, so that’s what he’s calling about. But I’ll call him back. We’ve got regular life stuff going on, too, and then, oh, by the way, a huge series with our hometown team with Jake as the rival’s goalie.
“So I hate to say we’ve gotten used to it to some extent, but this is just kind of the norm for us.”
Chris ultimately called Jake back and conducted the hype session. But it didn’t work. The Oettingers’ hometown Wild sliced and diced the Stars during a 6-1 victory that night.
The hype session heading into Game 2 must have had the desired effect, though. Jake was the best player on the ice in a 4-2 win Monday night, stopping 28 shots, including robberies on Danila Yurov, Quinn Hughes and what felt like a half-dozen on Matt Boldy.
What do these hype sessions consist of?
“I mean, there’s a little bit of like, ‘Let’s f—ing go!’” Chris said. “He’s super excited to play. He loves this time of year. This is the best time. This is the best hockey. For hockey fans, this is as good as it gets. And for Jake, as he’s gotten a little older and been so close, he really appreciates the opportunity to be able to play in these kinds of games. I mean, there are many of his friends that play hockey, like (the Anaheim Ducks’) Ryan Poehling, this is his first year in the playoffs. And so Jake never takes it for granted.
“It sounds funny to say it, but in this particular area, he’s kind of a vet. This is his sixth year. Going back to the bubble year when they played up at Edmonton and the Stanley Cup deal, he’s been doing this. And I think we get excited for the playoff beards. We get excited for the schedule when the schedule comes out. And we’ve already talked about when he’s in Minnesota — ‘When can we see you and hang out?’ And so we’re really excited, and I know he’s incredibly excited. So the hype session is more about that.
“And it always ends with a, ‘Good luck. I love you.’”
Jake, 27, is the middle of five. His oldest sister, Tori, is 31. His oldest brother, Jackson, is 28.
Then, there are the much younger Kendall and Thomas. They’re the ones who take the brunt of being Minnesotans in school with a big brother playing for the Wild’s bitter rival from the south — the once beloved yet relocated North Stars.
“I think they love it,” Jake said, laughing. “People at school and stuff will tell them that I suck and stuff. Obviously, I think beating the Wild in the playoffs a couple years ago was probably, like, one of the highlights of my career. Being in your hometown, I mean, a lot of people that normally are rooting for me, are not rooting for me, so it’s kind of a fun little thing.
“And, yeah, my brother and sister get chirped a little bit at school, but it’s all fun, and they think it’s cool.”
Thomas is Jake’s little buddy. He was the best man at Jake and wife Kennedi’s wedding. Jake and Thomas walked the red carpet together at the 2024 All-Star Game in Toronto. Two years ago, Thomas skated with the Stars at a morning skate at the then-named Xcel Energy Center and was captured on camera scoring a beautiful goal against Jake’s backup, Casey DeSmith, then emulating his big bro with a gorgeous celly.
Jake and Thomas Oettinger with matching cellys may be the best thing you watch today 🦦@PNCBank | #TexasHockey pic.twitter.com/8SsUdJJb34
— x – Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) November 16, 2024
Later that night, Jake made 22 saves in a 2-1 win over the Wild.
Two years earlier, Jake had his Stars teammates out to Phalen Park for some outdoor shinny on a wintry day, and Thomas, too, got to play.
Thomas, who loves baseball, too, will be a second-year peewee this fall. But he’s not a goalie.
“Oh, God, no,” Chris said. “Even if he was, Jake would’ve ended that real quick.”
Jake became a goalie at 9 or 10 years old. He was playing in a tournament in River Falls, Wis., as a squirt. A team with older players needed a goalie, and Jake said he’d play.
And then won the tournament.
“Jake made some funny saves because they’re just little kids at that time,” Chris recalled. “But from that point on, it was kind of like, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ And then there was no turning back after that. No second-guessing.”
Jake was playing hockey in Farmington at that time, and every team had only one goalie. So there were seasons when he played 40 or 50 games, plus summer hockey. He got tons of reps, ultimately playing at Lakeville North High School, the U.S. National Team Development Program in Michigan and Boston University.
The Stars drafted him in the first round in 2017. He’s in his sixth season and has led Dallas to three consecutive trips to the Western Conference final.
His goal is to win a Stanley Cup, and standing in his way for the second time in the first round is his home-state Wild.
“(In Dallas), it feels like another game,” Jake said. “But when I go back home, it feels bigger than that, obviously. Whenever I get to go home, like, if I could pick two (regular-season) games a year to win, it would be those two in Minnesota.”
The Wild killer has a good track record. Besides eliminating the Wild in 2023 in Minnesota with a 4-2 record, 2.01 goals-against average and .929 save percentage, Jake is 4-1-3 all-time in Minnesota in the regular season with a 2.07 GAA and a .929 save percentage. Overall in the regular season against Minnesota, he’s 9-1-4 with a 2.35 GAA and .920 save percentage.
Talk about awkward for the family.
“You’re in the State of Hockey,” Chris said. “And if everybody tells you that they love the Dallas Stars or whatever, they love Minnesota hockey more. So there’s a lot of ribbing and a little bit of crap that we all take for Jake being with the Stars. But generally what we get is, ‘We love Jake, but we love the Minnesota Wild more.’”
When Thomas is playing hockey, it doesn’t take long for other kids to realize he’s Jake’s brother. That OETTINGER nameplate sticks out. And when Jake plays in Minnesota, “It just feels like it’s amped up another notch versus other games,” Kelly said. “I’m not conflicted. I always laugh because people used to ask us, ‘Oh, is that hard to choose between cheering for Jake or cheering for the Wild?’ There’s never been a moment.”
Chris, laughing, added, “I’m not wearing Dallas Stars overalls at Wild games, but we’re definitely representing Jake, the Stars, and the family is, too.”
Left: Jake Oettinger poses with his gold medal with his father, Chris, older brother, Jackson, and younger brother, Thomas. Right: Oettinger with Chris and Thomas. (Courtesy of the Oettinger family)
During Dallas’ last visit to Minnesota, Jake had 50 family members and friends in the stands at Grand Casino Arena, which is already a special place to Jake’s dad and stepmom. That’s because they first met at a concession stand next to the Hockey Lodge on New Year’s Eve 2008.
“When I met Kelly, she had just bought a hot dog and was loading it up with condiments,” Chris said, laughing.
Kelly said her husband of almost 15 years is misremembering the story: “I was with a friend who knew his friend, and he was housing the hot dog!”
The way the Western Conference standings went this season, the Oettingers have known for months that Jake would likely be facing off with the Wild once again in the postseason. That gave them time to get mentally prepared.
“It is hard,” Chris admitted. “Jake, it’s hockey. But for us, we take it probably a little more personally just based on friends, family. I mean, you want him to play well. There’s the local radio and TV aspects, and he gets called out probably a little more because he’s from here. So it just adds that extra layer of stress and tension as parents to what it is. We’re just trying to watch hockey and hope they do well and win.”
Chris and Kelly still remember the 2023 series and how elated they were to watch Jake eliminate the Wild in St. Paul.
“When that series was done, it was like, ‘I don’t really care what happens from here,’” Chris said. “It was just a sense of relief that now there’s not the Minnesota angle anymore.”
Chris, a former high school basketball player at Rosemount who still plays lunchtime basketball weekly in Lakeville, is in sales. Kelly is in marketing.
He always wanted a basketball player. Jake’s oldest brother, Jackson, is 6-foot-7. Jake is 6-6.
“I thought maybe shooting guard, small forward type thing, but hockey turned out fine for Jake,” Chris joked.
Top row, left to right: Son-in-law Brandon and Tori Jungmann (nee Oettinger), Jackson, Chris and Jake Oettinger. Middle: Kendall, Kelly, Kennedi and baby Rhodes Oettinger. Front: Thomas Oettinger. (Courtesy of the Oettinger family)
Being the parents of a hockey goalie is stressful enough. But imagine being the parents of a goalie playing against his hometown team in the playoffs.
Jake so desperately wants to win a Stanley Cup. He said that’s all he plays for, all he thinks about.
That’s why Chris and Kelly were so devastated seeing Pete DeBoer pull Jake in last year’s conference final. How it was handled, DeBoer’s body language and what he said after the fact effectively cost DeBoer his job. DeBoer and Jake never spoke afterward.
“I can tell you with confidence, I don’t think I’ve ever seen, in a situation like that, Jake get pulled,” Chris said. “And listen, this literally has nothing to do with hockey. This has to do with when you see your son get pulled, and the camera’s on his face the entire time, and he skates over, and I’ll never forget as he skated by and he went to the end of the bench and he started walking down the tunnel, my heart just broke.
“He’s your son, so I can’t even imagine the emotions or feelings that he’s going through — what that does to somebody, how that makes you feel, especially with the type of hockey he’s played in his career. Everybody’s super critical of his play in the series or even versus Edmonton, but I think you take all that out, throw it out the window, think about him as a human being. And that, to me, was the hardest part. And I know that whether he would tell me the full story or not, I know that it was devastating — devastating for all of us.”
What pained the Oettingers the most was that after DeBoer was fired, the story just didn’t go away. It carried over into this season, even into this series after Jake gave up five goals in Game 1.
“He opened up the year by having to do interviews about it,” Chris said. “It just didn’t seem to go away probably as much as he wanted it to. He didn’t want to talk about it. He’s not a dramatic person. And so the life of it lasted longer than it probably should have. And I think that makes it a little harder. And don’t get me wrong, I would love to know if there was some looks (between Jake and DeBoer, who was an assistant for Canada) at the Olympics and things like that when they played each other. So, I’m sure it’s going to carry over. I don’t know how you put that one to bed.”
But Chris said that adversity was a motivator last offseason for his son, throughout this season and entering this postseason.
“He’s had a lot of adversities in his life,” Chris said. “Starting out a season in the AHL when he thought he was good enough to play in the NHL. Even when he was younger, adversities of making teams, not making teams, you’re the No. 1 guy, you’re not the No. 1 guy. All of those things motivate him to be the best he can be every time he plays.
“It’s just fuel for the fire.”
Jake may already be the best goaltender Minnesota has ever produced. When he earned his 150th win in his 252nd game last October, he became the fastest American goaltender in NHL history and the fastest goaltender in franchise history to 150 career wins. His 184 wins are the second-most of any Minnesota-born goalie (Frank Brimsek is first with 252).
And since making his first postseason start in 2022, Jake’s 33 career playoff wins rank second in the NHL behind Sergei Bobrovsky’s 48. They are the second-most in franchise history, the fourth-most all-time among American-born goaltenders and the most among Minnesota-born goalies.
There is, of course, a sense of pride in this for the Oettingers. Imagine what it must be like to see Jake twice throw out the first pitch at Texas Rangers games or be flashed on the giant video screen at Mavericks games.
“Chills,” Chris said. “They show him on the screen at the Rangers game and put up a montage of Jake in USA Hockey stuff, in Dallas Stars stuff, and you’ve got 40,000, 50,000 people in that stadium giving him a standing ovation as he walks out, you can’t believe, ‘That’s our son.’”
Wild fans so desperately want their team to get past the first round for the first time since 2015. Going as far as Jake has the last three years would be a dream. So Jake won’t get that same treatment Wednesday.
But the Oettingers will get chills nonetheless watching their son play yet another playoff game against the team in their backyard.