Dallas Stars goalie Jake Oettinger’s season ended unexpectedly when coach Peter DeBoer pulled him after he gave up two goals on the first two shots of an eventual 6-3 loss to the Edmonton Oilers in Game 5.
In his first comments since then, Oettinger said Saturday that the move was ‘surprising’ and that it was ’embarrassing’ that he ended up on camera so much afterward. But, he added, ‘The reality is if I make one or two of those saves, then I’m still playing in the game.’
Oettinger, who has signed an eight-year extension with the team, was pulled at 7:09 of the first period after Corey Perry and Mattias Janmark scored to give Edmonton a 2-0 lead. Backup Casey DeSmith played the rest of the game.
DeBoer was blunt after the game in explaining the move.
‘If you go back to last year’s playoffs, he’s lost six of seven games to Edmonton and we gave up two goals on two shots in an elimination game,’ he said. ‘It was partly to spark our team and wake them up and partly knowing that status quo had not been working. That’s a pretty big sample size.’
Asked about those comments, Oettinger said in his season-ending news conference that he was going to use the experience to become a better person and a better goalie.
‘My job is to stop the puck and I feel like I’m one of the best in the world when I’m playing well doing that,’ he said. “All the extra’s stuff is just extra stuff to me, so if I go out there next year and I’m the best goalie in the world, it doesn’t matter.”
While out of the game and sitting on the bench, Oettinger ended up on the national broadcast a lot whenever the ESPN cameras cut to analyst Ray Ferraro.
‘I was on the screen a lot more than I thought I should be,’ Oettinger said. ‘I don’t know why they kept showing me. I’m like, I haven’t moved in a half hour.
‘It’s embarrassing. Anytime you get pulled, doesn’t matter if it’s the playoffs or it’s the regular season, you just want to go right off the ice and crawl into your bed and not talk to anyone, especially in a moment like that.’
Oettinger and the Stars have been to the conference finals the last three seasons and lost all three.
His takeaway from being pulled in Game 5?
‘The way I’m looking at it is how can I get better from that, how can I make those saves that I made all playoffs, how do I make them in that game at the start of the game to give the guys a chance to get their feet under them,’ he said. ‘As a goalie, that’s your job. I’ve got to do better than that.”
He added later: ‘Bad stuff happens to people. Life is tough. It makes it when you finally get that win, it makes it all worth it. Hopefully, whether it’s next year, whether it’s five years from now and I’m looking at you guys (media), we just won the Stanley Cup and I say, ‘Remember all that BS. That was all for this.’ ‘