Edmonton Oilers smashing through yet another post-season wall in Stars goalie Jake Oettinger
The reason the L.A. Kings were going to get past the Edmonton Oilers in the first round this year was Darcy Kuemper.
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Remember?
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The Vezina Trophy finalist finished the regular season with a 2.02 goals against average and a .922 save percentage on a Kings team that gave up two or fewer goals in 14 of its last 19 games.
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The Kings were all set to shut down Edmonton's offence.
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What happened? The Kings are done and Kuemper sits dead last among all playoff goaltenders with a 3.74 goals against average. The Oilers lit him up for five goals three times and four goals once in dispatching Los Angeles in six games.
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Vegas goalie Adin Hill? After closing out the Minnesota Wild with .906, .909 and .935 save percentages in the last three games of that series, he was going to be a problem in the second round.
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What happened? The Oilers reduced his numbers to .857, .865 and .850 in the first three games, then Stuart Skinner posted shutouts in the last two, as Edmonton made very short work of the first place team in the Pacific Division.
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Which brings us to Jake Oettinger. He was sensational against the Winnipeg Jets, allowing just 12 goals in that six-game series and posting save percentages of .935, .923, .969, .912, .957.
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What's happening against Edmonton? It's been 12 goals against in three games and save percentages of .889, .880 and .750.
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Once again, the Oilers have been able to make one of the top goaltenders in the league look pretty ordinary.
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This doesn't mean Oettinger is down for the count, there is lots of series left, but he and the Stars need to find a way to slow down Edmonton's offence, or this is going to be another short one for the Oilers.
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'We wouldn't be sitting here in the Conference Finals without Jake Oettinger and how he's played,' said Stars coach Pete DeBoer, defending the backbone of his team.
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'(Game 3's 6-1 defeat) was one of those games where they were opportunistic, and once they got the lead, we're pushing to get back in it, and there's Grade As the other way.
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'One thing I know about Jake Oettinger is he's one of the best response goalies in the league.'
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Goals are supposed to be harder to come by in the post-season, but that hasn't been the case for Edmonton. They have a significantly higher goals per game average in the playoffs (3.93) than they had in the regular season (3.16).
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