Last season, the Seattle Kraken took the Dallas Stars to seven games in the NHL’s Western Conference semifinals.
The teams will meet for the first time this season on Monday night in Dallas, with the Stars entering the week in a three-way tie atop the Central Division and the Kraken four points back of a wild-card playoff spot.
But one thing they have in common is this: They’re both relying on backup goaltenders.
The Stars, who lost 4-3 in overtime on Saturday at St. Louis, will likely have to rely on Scott Wedgewood after starter Jake Oettinger suffered a lower-body injury early in Friday’s home game against Ottawa.
“We’re all real comfortable with (Wedgewood) taking this and running with this if he needs to for a little while,” Stars coach Peter DeBoer said.
DeBoer said Oettinger would be re-evaluated over the weekend and that the team might have more information Monday.
Even with Saturday’s overtime loss, Wedgewood is 6-1-2 with a 3.24 goals-against average and a .904 save percentage.
“You can only talk about ‘Wedge’ so many times. He’s a wall,” said Stars forward Tyler Seguin, who has known the goalie since childhood. “I’ve been seeing it since I was 5 or 6 years old, and it never seems to change.”
Wedgewood said he thought Oettinger needed an equipment adjustment when he skated to the bench eight minutes into Friday’s game — until he saw the look in his eyes.
“It’s just a tough situation,” Wedgewood said. “That’s what they pay me for, I guess.”
DeBoer said the Oettinger-Wedgewood tandem has been key to the team’s success over the past couple of seasons.
“It’s become more important over the last few years, load management in that position. I think it’s a tougher position than it’s ever been to play,” DeBoer said. “When you look at the goaltending success in the league, a lot of those teams have good tandems that can spot each other off.
“I think we wanted to come into the season with our fingers crossed that we keep both guys healthy, and if they were healthy, we wanted to make sure that we were playing both of them.”
Despite a 3-2 shootout loss to visiting Los Angeles on Saturday, the Kraken have a three-game point streak (2-0-1) following their eight-game skid (0-6-2).
The recent surge is due in large part to the play of netminder Joey Daccord, who has been filling in for the injured Philipp Grubauer (lower body).
Daccord posted his first NHL shutout in a slump-busting, 4-0 victory against Florida last Tuesday. He beat Chicago 7-1 on Thursday before stopping 36 shots against the Kings.
Forward Tomas Tatar, acquired from Colorado on Friday, started on the Kraken’s top line against Los Angeles due to Jordan Eberle’s lower-body injury.
Tatar had one shot on goal in 13:47 of ice time.
“He was solid,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said of Tatar. “He’s had an awful lot happening over the last 24 hours. He gave us good minutes. He makes a lot of little plays out there that might go unnoticed, so it was a good start for him.”
–Field Level Media
