Jake Oettinger stopped all 33 shots he faced Saturday night as the Dallas Stars won their home opener by beating the New York Islanders 3-0.
The shutout was the 11th of Oettinger’s career and his first since he had 35 saves in a 5-0 win over the visiting Edmonton Oilers on April 3.
Tyler Seguin opened the scoring in the first period and added an empty-netter late in the third for the Stars, who are 2-0-0 for the third time in five years. Jamie Benn scored in the second.
Semyon Varlamov recorded 24 saves for the Islanders, who are winless through two games (0-1-1) for the first time since opening 0-2-0 in 2021-22.
The Stars benefited from some puck luck in scoring their first two goals.
Seguin scored 7:59 into the first to cap a sequence that began with the center attempting to feed Matt Duchene at the goal line. Duchene missed the puck but collected it and passed to Mason Marchment as Seguin got open in the mid-slot. Seguin fired a shot beyond the glove of Varlamov, who was screened by Islanders defenseman Noah Dobson.
The Stars doubled their lead shortly beyond the midway point of the second. Benn slipped as he raced deep into the Islanders zone, but he kept possession of the puck as he got back to a standing position. He passed to Wyatt Johnston, whose shot clipped off Islanders defenseman Alexander Romanov.
New York’s Kyle Palmieri and Maxim Tsyplakov each tried to pick up the puck, but it continued skittering until Johnston got a piece of it and dished to Benn, whose shot sailed past Varlamov’s stick with 9:02 left.
The Islanders outshot the Stars 15-8 in the third but didn’t come close to cutting into Dallas’ lead before or after pulling Varlamov with a little more than 90 seconds left. Seguin iced the victory with 1:03 remaining to cap his first two-goal game in the regular season since he scored twice against the Colorado Avalanche on April 7.
–Field Level Media