*Photo from the Dallas Morning News*
This win for the Dallas Stars might seem like an insignificant one to the naked eye, but they gained some ground. Roope Hintz scored, Jacob Peterson scored, and the Stars defeated the Philadelphia Flyers with a 3-1 win on Monday night in Philadelphia.
Drawing the start in net for the Stars was Jake Oettinger, who had been pulled from his last two starts, and allowed 9 goals on his last 36 shots. Oettinger had a good rebound start in net, saving 27 of the 28 shots on goal that the Flyers sent his way, posting a .964 save percentage, with his record improving to 10-4-0 in 14 starts.
Oettinger said of his start that "Everyone has a conscious and they get those bad thoughts that sneak into your head. I had those today. Just tried to block those out. End of the day, I'm playing in the NHL, it's a dream come true. Just want to have fun and go out there and lay it all out there and see what happens. They scored a weird one, thought maybe it could be another one of those nights, not getting the bounces, but we shut it down real well in the third and feels really good right now."
It was Hintz who kicked off the scoring for the Stars, tallying his 18th goal of the season at the 17:46 mark of the first period, with Jason Robertson assisting. Ivan Provorov evened things up for the Flyers, scoring his 5th goal of the season 12:06 into the second period, making it a 1-1 game with assists coming from Travis Konecny and Justin Braun.
In the 3rd period, Peterson put the Stars back ahead, making it a 2-1 lead with 3:25 left in the game, good for his 7th goal of the season. Joe Pavelski then scored an empty net goal with 1:37 left, with Hintz and Esa Lindell assisting.
After a bit of a skid recently, the Stars have seemingly woken up, having now won 3 straight games, sitting in 5th place in the Central Division, and are currently tied with the Calgary Flames for the second wild card spot in the Western Conference playoff picture. Hintz with a goal and an assist along with Peterson led the way in this game for the Stars.
Stars head coach Rick Bowness said of Peterson that "You watch him get the puck and he hangs onto the puck and he tries to make plays. He doesn't panic with it, he's very good with it, his head is up. He's a smart hockey player. That's one thing we noticed form the first day of training camp, he has great hockey sense and I love his poise with the puck."
The Flyers misery continued, with this loss marking their 12th straight loss, going 0-9-3 in their last 12 games, tying the longest losing streak in team history. Perhaps the only positive from this stretch has been defenseman Keith Yandle. When he took the ice on Monday, Yandle tied Doug Jarvis for 964 straight regular season games played by a defenseman, set to become the ironman among defenders when he moves into sole possession of first place for consecutive games played on Tuesday night.
Otherwise, it has been nothing but agony for the Flyers. Carter Hart made the start in net as he tried to snap the Flyers out of the funk. It didn't work. Hart turned aside 33 of the 35 shots that he faced from the Stars, good for a .943 save percentage as his record dropped to 7-14-5 in 26 starts.
Provorov said of the game that "I thought we played a pretty solid game. Like the previous games, we just aren't able to find a way to score more than two goals. We'll get out of this eventually, and hopefully it's going to be tomorrow."
Both teams finish up a back to back on Tuesday, with Martin Jones to start in net for Yandle's historic night when the Flyers host the New York Islanders. The Stars head north for a road matchup with the New Jersey Devils, with Braden Holtby to start for Dallas.
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