With their backs against the wall, the Dallas Stars weren’t waiting around for Jake Oettinger to find his footing in Thursday’s Game 5 against the Edmonton Oilers.
Dallas and head coach Pete DeBoer made the call to pull their star netminder after Edmonton took a 2-0 lead on its first two shots on goal. The move came just over seven minutes into the game.
Corey Perry and Mattias Janmark were the culprits of the two goals that forced the Stars into the early change.
Janmark’s goal came on a breakaway off a bad Stars change that led to a DeBoer timeout and the removal of Oettinger from the Dallas crease.
For the second straight year, Oettinger has struggled in the Western Conference Final against the Oilers’ high-powered offence. Entering Thursday, the 26-year-old had a .869 save percentage and had allowed 14 goals in the first four games of the series.
Oettinger was relieved by Casey DeSmith, who had played just one game in these playoffs. He previously saw some action in Dallas’s Game 4 loss to the Colorado Avalanche in the first round.
Less than a minute after DeSmith came into the game, Jeff Skinner scored his first career playoff goal to put the Oilers up 3-0.
— With files from the Associated Press
