There Wasn't A Single Ounce Of Chalant In This Ridiculous Jake Oettinger Overtime Stick Save
Glenn James. Getty Images.Jake Oettinger is just a good ol' boy from Minnesota who has managed to develop himself into a top 5-10 goalie on the planet. He's one of the main reasons why the Dallas Stars are heading into the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs as the Central Division champions and top seed in the Western Conference.
They already had the division locked up before last night's final game of the regular season. And on the other end of the ice, the St. Louis Blues were already eliminated from playoff contention before the night began. So nothing about last night's game actually mattered. Which you could almost see in Jake Oettinger's demeanor when the game went to overtime.
This is a guy who just wanted to get home. Nothing about the way that game ended was going to change anything. They were already forced to play extra hockey in game 82, and Oettinger said to hell with it. But the thing about that is that he's a top 5-10 goalie on planet Earth. Even when he's not trying, he's going to bust out ridiculous saves like this.
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I genuinely don't believe there's ever been a more nonchalant save in hockey history. There have certainly been bigger and better saves. But at no point did Jake Oettinger even attempt to recover from giving Robert Thomas the entire 24 square feet of open net to shoot at.
Just stared it down and was thankful he could finally head to the locker room to take off his pads. But natural instinct to protect the back of the net kicked it, and he threw that stick out there at the last second. Somehow that^ turned into this.
That has to be the best save by a goalie in a Stars uniform since a guy named Belfour was between the pipes in Dallas. I just hope Robert Thomas wasn't a goal away from hitting any sort of contract bonus on the year. What a kick to the sack that would have been.
Stars won 2-1 after Oettinger stopped all 3 Blues attempts in the shootout. Sick puppy.