Dallas should put DeSmith on the calendar early

Before the next debate over who deserves the net, Dallas has a simpler job: decide where its second goalie’s starts fit. Casey DeSmith has done enough work to deserve a place in that planning meeting.

The Stars retained DeSmith and Jake Oettinger in Monday’s initial roster announcement. That pairing gives Dallas a basis for planning an uneven but deliberate division of starts. I would keep Oettinger as the lead option while identifying useful assignments for DeSmith before the need becomes urgent.

Last season’s workload makes that hierarchy difficult to dispute. Oettinger started 54 games for Dallas. DeSmith started 28 of his 30 appearances. Those figures describe an uneven tandem, with Oettinger carrying almost twice as many starts and finishing with a 35-12-6 record. DeSmith’s 30 appearances included a 15-8-6 record, while he stopped 689 shots.

Last season’s division makes a sensible starting point. DeSmith’s appearances need not become a weekly referendum on Oettinger, or wait for a poor performance to make the selection defensible. An assignment can be made because it suits the team’s workload plan. A backup who receives meaningful responsibility is useful even when the starter is playing well.

The surface statistics complicate the discussion. DeSmith posted a .907 save percentage last season, compared with Oettinger’s .899. DeSmith’s figure was higher, which deserves acknowledgment. It supplies a reason to consider him credible support, although it cannot establish that Dallas would be better off reversing their workloads.

The workload behind those percentages matters. DeSmith faced 760 shots and made 689 saves. Oettinger faced 1,372 shots and stopped 1,234.

Save percentage measures the share of shots stopped, but it does not say that every chance was equally difficult or that both goalies worked under identical defensive conditions. A smaller sample can be informative without settling the larger question of who should start most often.

The same caution applies to goals-against average. DeSmith finished at 2.43, below Oettinger’s 2.59. That difference is worth noting, but goals allowed also reflect the play in front of a goaltender and the chances surrendered.

Neither number isolates the goalie from the team. The strongest argument for DeSmith is therefore more modest and more durable: he handled 28 starts, which is meaningful NHL responsibility rather than emergency-only employment.

The strongest argument for a planned split is the combination of those performances with actual experience. DeSmith’s starting history is substantial enough that Dallas can ask him to contribute regularly. Oettinger’s heavier workload remains the reference for the lead role. Neither point requires declaring the two interchangeable or drawing up an equal division.

When the staff evaluates the calendar, it should identify the stretches in which sharing the work would be most useful, then revisit the plan as performance and availability change. Advance planning need not mean inflexibility. It gives the coaches a starting position instead of making every decision a fresh response to whatever happened in the previous game.

There is also a preparation benefit. A goalie used only when something goes wrong is treated as a fire extinguisher. A goalie given selected starts in advance has a defined job, even if that job remains smaller.

DeSmith does not need equal billing to be part of a serious plan, and Oettinger does not need to surrender his status as the mainstay for the arrangement to work.

A plan would also make departures from it easier to understand. When the staff changes an assignment, the useful standard is whether the change serves the coming workload and current performance, rather than simply rewarding the last result. Dallas already has a second goalie with meaningful experience; it should give that experience a job before an emergency does.

Sources

Dallas Stars: roster announcement

The Hockey News: Dallas roster

NHL: 2025–26 Dallas statistics