Defending Big D

The Dallas Stars announced today that they had signed goaltender Jake Oettinger to an eight year, $8.25M AAV extension. It’s a deal that, not coincidentally, perfectly matches the deal Jeremy Swayman signed with the Boston Bruins before the start of the season. The situations are slightly different, of course — Swayman was an RFA coming off a one year, $3.745M deal awarded in … [Read more...] about Jake Oettinger Signs 8x$8.25M Extension

I didn’t get to write many Afterwords last regular season. This was due to a variety of factors, but it mostly boiled down to 1) I was no longer able to reliably watch games live (the joys of new fatherhood), and 2) I couldn’t watch missed games on ESPN+ until 48 hours had passed, at which point it was often far too late for any relevant analysis. So I stuck mostly to games I … [Read more...] about Afterwords: Imperfect Perfection

Casey DeSmith made his Dallas Stars debut on Sunday evening, continuing what Jake Oettinger started in the team’s net. The result – two straight shutouts. Of course, those games were against the New York Islanders and the Seattle Kraken, both teams that are expected to struggle offensively this season. Tuesday night, enter the San Jose Sharks, a team that just got shutout by … [Read more...] about Stars Finish Homestand Against Winless Sharks

The Dallas Stars have won three games in four days. Two of them were shutouts, one for each goaltender. And the clean sheet that belongs to Casey DeSmith marked his very first game in Victory Green. Do we dare ask what he does for an encore? Stars staff writer Mike Heika took stock of the Sunday victory against the Seattle Kraken – the culmination of a long and intense opening … [Read more...] about Dallas Stars Daily Links: DeSmith Show

It seemed like old times. Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn lighting the lamp in front of solid goaltending. Throw in a bit of puck luck, and this Dallas Stars team is going to be hard to beat. The New York Islanders had their chances, but Jake Oettinger played his positional game to perfection, and once again the pipes took care of the rest. Even when the puck got behind him, once … [Read more...] about Stars look to Keep Rolling Against Kraken