Heika's Take: Oettinger powers Stars to his 18th win of the season

Jake Oettinger made a save (or 27) on Sunday afternoon, and his teammates felt the fight, taking care of the battle on the other end of the neutral zone and helping the netminder to his 18th win of the season.
Oettinger held the Stars in through a tough opening period, and then Dallas responded with a balanced team effort to take a 5-1 win over the Florida Panthers at American Airlines Center.

"Jake was excellent," Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. "He was our best player. Real slow start and our energy wasn't great. The goalie gave us a chance to get our legs under us. We got some timely goals, and we won the special teams battle, which was critical and a big piece of what we have done all year."
As good as Oettinger was, the rest of the team did catch up. Jason Robertson scored two goals, Ryan Suter had two assists, and Dallas got depth scoring from Nils Lundkvist, Esa Lindell and Miro Heiskanen. Dallas held the Panthers to just three shots on goal in the third period and avoided a three-game losing streak. The Stars have not lost more than two games in a row this season, and it was a big push for the team after a tough two losses in California.

"It's important," said Suter. "We didn't play our best game today, but we found a way to win. That's what good teams do. You don't want to lose two [games] in a row, and we did, so we knew this game was important for us."
Oettinger was the key. He turned away everything the Panthers could throw at him, and he frustrated the opposition. Then, out of nowhere, Robertson made a heads-up play to get a puck and drove to the net. He put a hard shot on goal, then got his own rebound and scored from a tough angle for a 1-0 lead.
Dallas has the league lead in scoring first with 25. It's been a major component of the team who sits at 24-11-6 at the midpoint of the season.
"We want to get the first goal in every game, especially when we are on our heels," said Robertson, who ranks sixth in the league with 28 goals. "We slowed down their momentum and tried to take the game over in the second and third period."

The strategy worked. While Florida came back and made the score 2-1 in the second period, Lindell scored off a pass from Jamie Benn to restore the two-goal lead and allowed Dallas the wiggle room it needed in the third. The Stars rank second in third period goals with 57 after adding two more on Sunday. It has been a nice start for the team under DeBoer and his new coaching staff, but the bench boss said there is much work to do.
That's true, as the team has five of the next six games on the road and lost top center Roope Hintz in the first period to an upper body injury. Hintz is listed as "day to day," but he is one of the first significant injuries the Stars have had this season. On the good side, Radek Faksa, Tyler Seguin and Wyatt Johnston each stepped up and took more minutes. In addition, Robertson was double-shifted and finished with 18:44 in time on ice and six shots on goal.
"We've got to use our depth," DeBoer said. "I thought everybody found a way to contribute and take on some more minutes. Everyone stepped up."

And that's a big part of the journey of a season. Dallas has had the fewest man-games lost in the NHL, so this could be a new challenge. It also has not lost three games in a row, so that's a challenge that has been there all year. Oettinger continues to be a top-10 goalie and Robertson continues to be a top-10 scorer. Meanwhile, players like Lundkvist and Johnston continue to get better each game.
Sunday was a nice example of all of that.
"As a team we know when we're playing good and what we have to do," Suter said. "It's always a work in progress, so for us it's to continue to build on our fundamentals and our `rules.' It's such a tough league, and you can't take games off. So, our mindset of going into every game and continue to get better, I think that's going to help us out here."
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.