Stars cruise past Oilers, extend winning streak to 8

DALLAS -- Jake Oettinger made 35 saves for his second straight shutout, and the Dallas Stars won their eighth straight game with a 5-0 victory against the Edmonton Oilers at American Airlines Center on Wednesday.

Oettinger made 17 saves in a 3-0 win against the Seattle Kraken on Saturday.

“It feels good. They’re a great team and we’ve been playing real well, so I just wanted to keep that going,” Oettinger said. “Guys did a great job defensively. Obviously, we know what they have over there. We were smart with the puck all over the ice and didn’t let those guys do what they wanted. Great all-around effort.”

Radek Faksa had a goal and two assists, Wyatt Johnston and Sam Steel each had a goal and an assist, and Craig Smith had two assists for Dallas (48-19-9), which moved five points ahead of the Colorado Avalanche for first place in the Central Division.

The Stars also remained three points ahead of the Vancouver Canucks, who defeated the Arizona Coyotes 2-1 on Wednesday, for first in the Western Conference.

“It starts with our goalie. I thought he was our best player. He was fantastic, and he was fantastic early in that game when we were, I thought, tentative in the first 10 minutes,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “Couple of huge saves, momentum-shifting saves in the middle of the game there where it could have got a lot closer. He was our best player. And then just a really good team effort. I thought we worked away from the puck to take away time and space and not give them much.”

Calvin Pickard made 27 saves for Edmonton (45-24-5), which has lost two straight and remained three points ahead of the Vegas Golden Knights for second in the Pacific Division.

“A lot of credit to the Dallas Stars. They’re playing really good hockey and they’re a really good team. You see why they’re leading the Western Conference right now,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “For us to come in here, it was a challenge for us and we came up short. We thought it was a good test to see how good we were, and we still have some work to do to catch up to them.”

Dallas scored four goals in a 5:48 span late in the second period to build a 5-0 lead.

Tyler Seguin made it 2-0 at 13:16 with a power-play goal, scoring with a one-timer from below the left circle off a cross-crease pass from Miro Heiskanen.

“You get down a couple, it’s about sticking with it. We’ve done a great job of that at times this year,” Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said. “Whether we’re down a goal, two goals, it’s having the belief that we’re going to get the job done at the end of the day. And if we come up short, we’re going to come up short playing the right way, and tonight that wasn’t the case. We know we’re better than that.”

Johnston extended the lead to 3-0 at 16:27. He exited the penalty box and joined a 4-on-1 rush before taking a pass from Thomas Harley and scoring short side from the edge of the right circle.

“You never want to take a penalty, so when you’re able to get out and get a chance right away, it feels good," Johnston said. "They had a great kill leading up to that, and [Harley] made a great play to me. When you’re in the box, you want that kill and if there’s a chance to go, it feels good when you can do that. It was already a 2-on-1, so I just tried to hop in and join them.”

Jamie Benn made it 4-0 at 18:42 with a redirection near the left post, and Steel pushed it to 5-0 at 19:04 after getting to a loose puck in front and scoring with his backhand.

“It happened so quick. If the goals were spread out, it’s a different story. They just kept coming,” Oilers defenseman Mattias Ekholm said. “We really got to do a better job of managing, and shifts after goals have to be a lot better where you just play simple and get in on the forecheck. We weren’t able to do that tonight.”

Faksa gave Dallas a 1-0 lead at 2:08 of the first period, finishing off a backhand centering pass from Steel on a 3-on-2 rush after Smith forced a turnover by Leon Draisaitl in the neutral zone.

“First shift, first goal. You play with more confidence then,” Faksa said. “If you score first shift, you feel good about yourself the rest of the game. The forwards were forechecking really hard, defense was blocking shots, [Oettinger] made some huge saves. It was just everything together was really good working for us.”

NOTES: Dallas' winning streak is the longest in its history. ... Johnston is the first player age 20 or younger (20 years, 325 days) to score 30 goals in a season since Patrik Laine (30) in 2018-19. ... Oilers forward Connor McDavid had his point streak end at eight games (four goals, 16 assists).