Oettinger’s Costly Puck Decision Came Before the Empty-Net Damage

Jake Oettinger’s most costly contribution to the Stars’ 4-0 opening loss came with the puck on his stick behind the Dallas net. Two Blues goals came with Dallas using an extra attacker, leaving Oettinger with 20 saves on 22 shots. Yet the second goal still deserves scrutiny because it began with a puck decision behind the net that Dallas could control.

Oettinger did not allow four goals himself. He did help create the one that changed a one-goal contest into a much steeper climb.

A retrieval becomes a scramble

McTavish opened the scoring with the first-period clock reading 1:34. Oettinger had stopped Colton Parayko’s attempt, but the rebound reached the St. Louis forward. The Blues followed the shot, won the next touch and finished. That was a standard second-effort goal, with responsibility shared across the defensive sequence.

The next one had a different shape. With 6:55 remaining in the second period, Oettinger went behind the Dallas net and left the puck for Nils Lundkvist. Pius Suter reached it before Lundkvist could take possession and moved it to Philip Broberg.

Oettinger then tried to get back to his crease, tripped over Roope Hintz and could not reset before Broberg found Dalibor Dvorsky for a finish into the open net.

The mistake was not simply “playing the puck.” Goaltenders leave the crease to help their defense start clean exits, and a controlled handoff can prevent a forecheck from becoming a problem. The issue was the risk calculation: Oettinger’s intended recipient did not win the race, and the goalie was suddenly behind the play rather than improving it.

Dallas’ skaters still had chances to repair the damage. Suter won the puck, Broberg made the decisive pass and Dvorsky had to convert. The coverage also failed to eliminate the final option. That keeps this from being a one-man goal. But Oettinger’s choice initiated the chain, and the collision with Hintz magnified the consequence rather than causing the original exposure.

Because Oettinger remained the listed goalie when Dvorsky scored, the goal counted against him. That is fair. It is also fair to describe it precisely: a preventable puck-management error followed by a defensive breakdown, not a routine shot that exposed a goaltender’s technique.

The save arithmetic matters

Oettinger stopped 14 of 16 shots at even strength and all three he faced while Dallas was shorthanded. St. Louis went 0-for-4 on the power play. Those figures do not turn the night into a strong performance, but they establish its scale.

He allowed two goals before Dallas pulled him, then watched Jimmy Snuggerud and Pius Suter score 15 seconds apart at 17:37 and 17:52 of the third period.

Empty-net goals count on the scoreboard and reflect the danger of chasing a game. They do not test the same job as a normal shot on goal. The final margin expanded from 2-0 to 4-0 without adding another conventional save opportunity for Oettinger, which is why assigning all four goals to him would be bad arithmetic disguised as analysis.

Joel Hofer deserves the larger share of the night’s goaltending credit. He stopped all 25 Dallas shots, including 20 at even strength and four on the Stars’ power play. Dallas outshot St. Louis 10-5 in the second period and won 36 of 58 faceoffs, but those advantages never became a goal.

Hofer handled the chances that arrived, while Dallas could not turn that larger second-period shot count into a goal.

The shot distribution reinforces that point without explaining every missed opportunity. Wyatt Johnston and Tyler Seguin each had four shots, giving them eight of Dallas’ 25. Jason Robertson had two, and Mikko Rantanen had one in 22:10. Hofer’s shutout required real execution, but the sparse shot counts from Rantanen and Robertson gave Dallas fewer attempts from two prominent scorers.

For Oettinger, the corrective action is concrete. Behind the net, the choice is either secure the next Dallas touch or send the puck safely into space. Against St. Louis, the first option failed, the recovery route became tangled and Dvorsky received the cleanest chance of the sequence.

The Stars’ offense and Hofer’s performance explain why they stayed scoreless; one hurried puck decision explains why the deficit became so difficult to escape.

Sources

NHL: official game report

NHL: official game report

NHL: Blues–Stars report