On what to look for in the goaltending battle between Connor Hellebuyck and Jake Oettinger

Let's go deep down the goalie nerd hole, with me, an amateur goalie.

In addition to the fact it features the Dallas Stars — one of the two teams we cover most here¹ — the Stars vs. Jets series is one of the most intriguing for me as a goaltending nerd.

I love the subplot battle between Jake Oettinger and Connor Hellebuyck, and everything it represents, which I wrote extensively about this morning over at D Magazine.

Oettinger’s primary focus is beating Winnipeg and helping Dallas advance to a third consecutive conference finals. In order for the Stars to do that, he’ll most likely have to outplay Connor Hellebuyck, a fellow American widely considered the best goalie in the world, and the starter for Team USA at the 4 Nations Face-Off back in February. And if Oettinger, a backup on that team, outplays Hellebuyck, there’s a strong case to be made that he’ll have taken a step to potentially steal the No. 1 job for the Americans at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

You can read the full piece here.

I also discussed the series at length yesterday with my pals over at Winnipeg Sports Talk, my segment starts right around the 1 hour, 36-minute mark if you are interested.

And if you need even more, the folks I work with at DLLS Sports did further preview yesterday as well, which you can watch here.

Before we get into the hockey, this series is really cool to me from a media perspective.

It features two markets that have passionate hockey fans — the Winnipeg playoff whiteout is a bucket list item for me — that have been underserved by traditional media.

While the Jets still have a writer assigned at my former employer², they did have coverage slashed at one point by that company and in Dallas, all coverage from that outlet is from outside reporters parachuting in for this series.

Both media markets have also dealt with travel cuts on coverage, and it’s left a void where some non-traditional voices have been able to step in and become part of the mainstream discussion.

In Winnipeg, it’s really cool to see what they’ve built with YouTube channel at Winnipeg Sports Talk after some radio cuts left folks without jobs in that market.

In Dallas, the addition of the DLLS Stars show has been an awesome addition to the daily game coverage, and I would say that even if I wasn’t on two shows per week.

It’s also been a pretty cool to see a space where Robert Tiffin can be recognized for all the work he’s done independently, and if you haven’t followed his stuff already, you should right here.

OK, back to the meat of where I was trying to go with this.

Let’s talk about the goaltending matchup and what a pre-scout might look like for both teams tonight before Game 1.

First, we’ll start with the likely league MVP, who struggled in the first round against the St. Louis Blues.

First here are the raw numbers.

And here is a quick, and succinct observation that friend of the program and former NHL goalie Mike McKenna pointed out about Hellebuyck during the first round.

The Stars will obviously go to that playbook, they’ll also have a chart similar to this up in the locker room.