DALLAS (AP) \u2014 This is the third chance that goalie Jake Oettinger and the Dallas Stars have been waiting for the past year.<\/p>\n
The Stars are back in the Western Conference final for the third season in a row and facing a familiar opponent in Edmonton<\/a>. They want to still be playing after that this time.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve learned a lot the last two years. That\u2019s all we wanted after we lost last year, is this opportunity,\u201d Oettinger said. \u201cThe fact that we get to play Edmonton again makes it even better. \u2026 It\u2019s up to us as a group to take the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n Dallas advanced again with a 2-1 overtime win<\/a> in Game 6 of their second-round series against Winnipeg, and host the Oilers in Game 1 on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n The Stars lost in six games in each of the past two West finals to fall short of playing for the Stanley Cup \u2014 they won that for the only time in 1999, and were runner-ups in 2000 and 2020. Before losing in the West last year<\/a> to superstar Connor McDavid and the Oilers, it was Vegas in 2023 when the Golden Knights were on the way to their only Cup title. <\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve still got another gear,\u201d said Miro Heiskanen, the standout defenseman who has been back for only three games since missing 3 \u00bd months with a left knee injury. <\/p>\n Stars players had the first of consecutive days without practice Sunday. It is a much-needed break after wrapping up the second round series against Presidents\u2019 Trophy-winning Winnipeg on Saturday night, following a seven-game series against a Colorado team that many considered a Stanley Cup favorite. <\/p>\n To get this far last year, the Stars had to beat the previous two Cup champions. <\/p>\n \u201cYeah, it\u2019s hard to believe we\u2019re halfway, right?,\u201d third-year Stars coach Pete DeBoer said with a laugh. \u201cIt sure feels like we\u2019ve been through a lot, but that\u2019s the beauty of the NHL playoffs. We\u2019ll take a couple days. I think we\u2019ve got a lot left. I\u2019ve said it here, I think we\u2019ve got something special going on. We\u2019re gonna have to prove it again. We\u2019ve been to this spot the last two years and haven\u2019t taken the next step, so that\u2019s the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n Defenseman Thomas Harley scored on a power play<\/a> 1:33 into overtime of Game 6 on Saturday night to eliminate the Jets, and keep Dallas from having to go back to Canada for Game 7. <\/p>\n The Oilers will go a week between games after ending their second-round series with a 1-0 overtime win in Game 5<\/a> over Vegas last Wednesday night. McDavid and Leon Draisaitl were the NHL\u2019s only 100-point teammates in the regular season, and have kept scoring in the playoffs \u2014 McDavid with 17 points (three goals, 14 assists) and Draisaitl with 16 (five goals, 11 assists). <\/p>\n \u201cBoy, I don\u2019t know if you ever ask to play Draisaitl and McDavid,\u201d DeBoer said. \u201cBut we knew going in, what a gauntlet of teams. \u2026 The way this has rolled out sure hasn\u2019t been easy.\u201d<\/p>\n Stars forward Mikko Rantanen<\/a> is still the NHL playoffs leader with 19 points (nine goals), even with no goals and only one assist in the last three games against Winnipeg.<\/p>\n Oettinger has a .919 save percentage this postseason, including a spectacular lunging save<\/a> late in regulation that kept Game 6 against the Jets tied. The latest of the 26-year-old goalie\u2019s six playoff series wins came against two-time Vezina Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck, the odds-on favorite to win that top goalie award again this season and who Oettinger backed up<\/a> for USA Hockey during this year\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off. <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cOur goaltending\u2019s been exceptional. He just went head-to-head with maybe the MVP of the league, and what everyone is saying is the best goaltender in the world. And he probably was this year, in Hellebuyck,\u201d DeBoer said. \u201cAnd he went toe-to-toe with him, nose-to-nose with him the entire series. Great character, gut-check by Jake. And he\u2019s delivering at a real key time for us.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n AP NHL playoffs: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS (AP) \u2014 This is the third chance that goalie Jake Oettinger and the Dallas Stars have been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5117],"tags":[1171,155,196,147,5278,198,5,424,1326,370,270,423,4,292,2087,43,14,300,104,197,2392,1275,77],"class_list":{"0":"post-37678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-stars","8":"tag-connor-hellebuyck","9":"tag-connor-mcdavid","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-stars","12":"tag-dallasstars","13":"tag-edmonton","14":"tag-hockey","15":"tag-jake-oettinger","16":"tag-las-vegas","17":"tag-leon-draisaitl","18":"tag-mikko-rantanen","19":"tag-miro-heiskanen","20":"tag-nhl","21":"tag-nhl-hockey","22":"tag-pete-deboer","23":"tag-sports","24":"tag-stanley-cup","25":"tag-stanley-cup-finals","26":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","27":"tag-stars","28":"tag-thomas-harley","29":"tag-tx-state-wire","30":"tag-winnipeg"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114531658853361461","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}