Stars seek better effort against high-flying Oilers

The Dallas Stars are aiming to bounce back after a poor effort and tighten their hold on a playoff spot when they visit the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday.

The Dallas Stars are aiming to bounce back after a poor effort and tighten their hold on a playoff spot when they visit the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday.

The Stars (43-28-5, 91 points) sit in the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference after a 6-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Monday, a team chasing Dallas for that final spot. The Stars are four points ahead of their nearest pursuer, the Vegas Golden Knights.

"Short memory," forward Michael Raffl said. "Forget about this one. There's two games coming up and that's where our focus is on."

The month of April has been up and down for the Stars, who have won consecutive games only once since a three-game winning streak from March 29-April 2. They're 4-3-2 since that streak, and know that they need to put forth better efforts in the final two weeks of the season.

"They're huge," Stars coach Rick Bowness said. "And you don't win at this time of year with half your team playing well and the other half not playing well. So, the guys who didn't show up and didn't play well better find their game by Wednesday night."

Goalie Jake Oettinger was pulled in the second period after allowing four goals on 19 shots against the Canucks. Bowness isn't worried about his young netminder.

"He'll bounce back," Bowness said. "We have faith in Jake, we have faith in Scott (Wedgewood). A couple of bad goals? Yeah, they were, and at the wrong times. But it's up to the rest of the guys to battle back and give them some run support, and we didn't do that. When your goalie gives up a bad goal, try to bail him out."