Jake Oettinger’s tall task: Being the Dallas Stars’ future in goal
JAKE OETTINGER FELT INVINCIBLE.
The Dallas Stars were in a Game 7 overtime against the Calgary Flames in the first round of last season’s playoffs. They were there because of Oettinger, the second-year goaltender who had stopped 208 of the 218 shots he had faced in the previous six games.
The finale against the Flames was the thrilling capper on a brilliant series: stopping 64 of 66 shots on goal into the first overtime to become the second goalie to make 60 or more saves in a Game 7 since 1995, when the stat was first tracked.
“You’re so immersed in what you’re doing,” Oettinger recalled. “You feel like you’re never going to get scored on.”
Johnny Gaudreau took the 67th shot that Oettinger faced, hurling the puck at the net from an odd angle to the goalie’s right. It flew over Oettinger’s shoulder and behind him at 15:09 of overtime. Horns blared. Red lights flashed. The Calgary bench emptied. The Stars had been eliminated.
Oettinger couldn’t bring himself to watch his historic effort again during the offseason, given the outcome. “I’ve seen the highlights but I haven’t watched the full thing yet,” he said. “If we would have won that game? Yeah, I would have watched it.”
Looking back at the playoffs, Dallas general manager Jim Nill still chuckles at the irony: What some considered to be the Stars’ biggest playoff liability turned into their greatest asset.
“When we started the series, probably one of the biggest question marks we had was that we had a young goalie getting his first Stanley Cup playoff action,” Nill said. “This résumé isn’t very long. How is he going to handle it? Now we look back on it, and I’ve never seen a young man enjoy the moment as much as he did. He cherished being in the net.”
Oettinger remained in the net after Gaudreau’s overtime goal. Stars captain Jamie Benn skated over to his goalie, still on one knee, to console him.
“If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t even have been close to overtime or having a chance to win,” Benn said. “He’s a phenomenal young goalie. He’s going to be great for this organization for a long time.”
The future is now for Oettinger and Dallas. With a new three-year contract in hand, the 23-year-old goalie entered the 2022-23 season at the top of the Stars’ depth chart for the first time.
“He’s our No. 1 goalie,” Nill said. “He’s grabbed that opportunity. It’s not like you come into a season and say, ‘we’re just going to give it to you.’ No, he’s earned it.”
NILL FIRST SAW Oettinger with the U.S. national development team in Detroit.
“We’ve known him since he was 16,” Nill said. “When you’re playing for the U.S. in these tournaments, you’re a pretty good player. So we got to know him and that’s why we moved a little higher to select him.”
Dallas had the third overall pick in the 2017 NHL draft, selecting Miro Heiskanen. But when Nill saw Oettinger was still on the board late in the first round — no goalies had been drafted yet — he sent the 29th overall pick (from Anaheim) and a third-rounder to Chicago for the 26th overall pick and selected Oettinger.
They respected his character. They loved his size. Oettinger is listed at 6-foot-5, and nothing about that is generous.
“It’s weird. Some guys look tall and they’re lanky. You get next to him, and he’s tall and has size,” Nill said.
After Oettinger and Ben Bishop, who is listed at 6-foot-7, do the Stars officially have a “type” when it comes to their goaltending?
Nill laughed. “We’ve been fortunate that way,” he said. “But that’s also why Bishop has been a great mentor for him.”
Oettinger joined the Stars in 2019 after three seasons with Boston University. His development track had its twists and turns.
He played 38 games with the AHL Texas Stars in 2019-20 before the COVID pandemic shuttered sports. His NHL debut was in the Western Conference “bubble” playoffs. Oettinger was the Stars’ third-string insurance goaltender. Then Bishop was injured and Oettinger found himself backing up Anton Khudobin. His NHL debut came in 17 minutes of relief against the Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference finals. He also saw 19 minutes of action in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In total, Oettinger faced eight shots and made eight saves.
Bishop’s status for the 2020-21 season impacted Oettinger. The Stars hoped the former Vezina Trophy winner could make a comeback, but Bishop missed the entire season. Oettinger ended up playing 29 games in back of Khudobin, going 11-8-7 with a .911 save percentage. Analytically, he was superior to Khudobin, who played below replacement level. Oettinger saved 2.97 goals above average.
But at the start of the 2021-22 season, Oettinger was shocked to find himself back in the AHL, as the Stars went with free agent signing Braden Holtby and Khudobin as their netminders. (Bishop, who hadn’t seen the ice since August 2020, officially retired in December 2021.)
Nill said it was a call they made based on trying to get Oettinger more reps. “We knew we had to get him down in the minors. He wasn’t happy about it. But if he looks back, it was probably the best thing for him,” the GM said.
Oettinger returned to the NHL club on Nov. 16, 2021. He gradually took over the crease, starting 46 games, winning 30 of them and posting a .914 save percentage. He closed out the season winning five of seven starts before his masterful series against the Flames.
The Calgary series changed things for Oettinger, who could sense his stock rising considerably with peers around the NHL after that performance.
“I could feel it a little bit,” he said. “Everyone’s watching the playoffs.”
HOCKEY NICKNAMES AREN’T exactly complex, so it should come as no surprise that Oettinger’s is “Otter.” What is surprising: That the goalie has his own mascot.
“My guy does a little otter cartoon guy,” Oettinger said. “Last year I threw a little cowboy hat on him.”
Goalie mask designer David Gunnarsson created an animated otter that has adorned several of Oettinger’s masks.
“I was like, this could be like my thing,” Oettinger said.
Last season, it was a cowboy otter. This season, it’s a golfing otter, complete with gloves and a club.
The otter meme goes beyond the mask for Oettinger. Cartoon otters have appeared on T-shirts. Otters have become a way for fans to celebrate him on social media. “When I have a good game, people tweet out a GIF with otters,” he said.
I did a thing ? #TexasHockey #jakeoettinger #otter @DallasStars pic.twitter.com/oUDb67Ozm4
— Is it opening night yet? (@StarsCountdown) May 20, 2022
How many otters Oettinger receives this season will depend on how he handles being the No. 1 guy. Stopping 60-plus pucks in a single game takes a different mental fortitude than backstopping a team to the postseason in 60-plus games. One made him feel invincible. The other makes him feel indispensable.
“I think for me, it’s going to be a lot of the mental side this season,” he said. “I’ve never come in as a No. 1. I’m just going to have to deal with … not ‘pressure,’ but more responsibility, obviously.”
The Stars are a team with a veteran core — Benn, Tyler Seguin, Joe Pavelski — augmented by a collection of young stars under 24, like Heiskanen, Jason Robertson and Oettinger. The goalie believes it’s on him to create the foundation for that roster to thrive.
“It’s going to be up to me to get this team back into the playoffs,” he said. “It’s a lot of responsibility. But it’s what I signed up for.”
Oettinger signed something else during the offseason: a three-year contract worth $4 million against the salary cap annually.
Nill said the Calgary series didn’t necessarily complicate those negotiations. For all the confidence he has in Oettinger, this was still a 23-year-old goalie with two seasons and 77 games to his credit.
“He did a good job for us during the year, but the body of work was a short time frame,” Nill said.
Their contract talks stretched through the late summer. Could Dallas go higher than the $3.979 million AAV that the Flyers gave Carter Hart in August 2021 after 101 NHL games?
On Sept. 1, the Stars landed on the $4 million AAV deal with Oettinger, who is a restricted free agent when it expires in 2025.
“We got something done. Maybe a lot for a player that played that number of games. But he deserved it,” Nill said. “He’s already earned it based on who he is and knowing how his teammates want to play for him — that tells you something.
“He’s a player with high-end character. And he’s our future, going forward.”
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Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer
For years, teammates have asked Devin Williams to teach them his changeup, a pitch so unusual and dominant it has its own nickname. Williams always helps. They just never get “The Airbender” right.
“I haven’t seen anyone replicate it,” Williams said.
Powered by The Airbender, Williams has established himself as one of the premier relievers in baseball since breaking into the majors in 2019. He has been so good that the Milwaukee Brewers, keeping with their frugal roster-building tactics, traded Williams to the New York Yankees last month for left-hander Nestor Cortes and prospect Caleb Durbin before he inevitably would become too expensive in free agency next winter.
So, for one season, at least, Williams will follow in the footsteps of another Yankees closer who perplexed hitters with one pitch: Mariano Rivera.
“Those are big shoes to fill,” Williams said of Rivera, whose signature cutter helped him become the first player voted unanimously to the Hall of Fame. “I feel he kind of ruined it for everybody else. I mean, after him, it’s hard to live up to those expectations. But at the end of the day, I can only be me.”
Being himself has been more than good enough for the 30-year-old Williams. The right-hander won the 2020 National League Rookie of the Year Award with a 0.33 ERA in 22 games as the Brewers’ primary setup man during the COVID-shortened campaign. He was an All-Star in 2022 and 2023, his first full season as a closer.
Last season, after missing the first four months with stress fractures in his back, he posted a 1.25 ERA with 14 saves in 15 opportunities across 22 appearances. His 40.8% strikeout rate since 2020 ranks second in the majors among relievers. His 1.70 ERA is also second. His .144 batting average against ranks first.
“Obviously, he’s one of the best in the league, if not the best,” Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said.
For Williams, it all starts with The Airbender. Williams grips it like a changeup and its 84-mph average velocity plays off his fastball like a changeup. But it’s a changeup with an exceptionally high spin rate that breaks to his arm side — opposite from the typical changeup — making it resemble a screwball or a left-hander’s sweeping slider. It is without precedent.
“It’s not anything to do with the grip,” Williams said. “The grip is nothing special. That’s why I think it’s funny when people are like, ‘Oh, don’t give it away.’ This is the most basic changeup grip they teach you when you’re 8 years old.”
Williams said his changeup is so different for two reasons: His elite extension, which ranked in the 98th percentile in 2024, and a singular ability to pronate his wrist.
“It’s the way my wrist works, the way I’m able to manipulate the ball is something unique, uniquely me,” Williams said. “It allows me to throw my changeup the way I throw it. I’m a really good pronator, not supinator. That’s why my slider sucked. You need to get on the other side of the ball. I’m not good at that. I’m good at turning it over.”
Williams did, however, modify his changeup grip to unearth the weapon. Entering 2019, Williams was a struggling minor league starter with a solid changeup, two years removed from Tommy John surgery. He was one year from reaching free agency, from perhaps seeing his career come to an end and going to college to play soccer.
That spring, seeking more movement, he altered his changeup grip from a two-seam to a four-seam, circle change grip. He first threw it during a live batting practice session to Trent Grisham, then a Brewers prospect. Grisham, now with the Yankees, told Williams the spin difference was noticeable. Williams stuck with it.
A starter through spring training, Williams was sent to Double-A as a reliever to begin the season. The demotion sparked desperation, and Williams decided to throw harder than ever, reaching back to lift his fastball into the high 90s. He was in the majors by August. But it wasn’t until the COVID shutdown in 2020 — when he realized spinning the ball more and dropping the velocity from high-80s to mid-80s created more movement — that his changeup reached another level.
“I took that into the season and at summer camp I’m facing my own teammates,” Williams said. “And Jedd Gyorko, I threw him one, and he swung and missed and he was just like, What is that? I’ve never seen [anything] like that. That gave me confidence and we just ran with it. And I literally started throwing it all the time.”
Coincidentally, Williams said the closest changeup he’s seen to his belongs to Luke Weaver, whose emergence as a shutdown reliever in 2024 was crucial in the Yankees reaching the World Series. Williams happened to be in New York when the Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers played in the Fall Classic. He was on his annual autumn vacation after the Brewers were eliminated from the postseason. Past trips have taken him all over Europe: London, Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, Munich, Dortmund, with a soccer game invariably on his itinerary.
This time, he was in New York. He explored the city for 10 days. Instead of soccer, he watched the World Series from a bar. He shopped. He ate good food. He absorbed the city’s energy.
“I’m a city guy,” Williams said. “I love to explore cities. I like to immerse myself in the culture. I want to be like a normal, everyday person. You guys like bacon, egg and cheese? All right, I’m getting a bacon, egg and cheese.”
Less than two months later, as part of a series of moves executed in their pivot from Juan Soto‘s decision to sign with the crosstown Mets, the Yankees added Williams. On Thursday, Williams settled for $8.6 million to avoid arbitration.
He’ll partner with Weaver to create one of the best bullpen back ends in baseball — in hopes of helping the Yankees win their first championship since Rivera was dominating hitters with his cutter.
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