{"id":98066,"date":"2021-01-15T19:02:02","date_gmt":"2021-01-16T00:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=98066"},"modified":"2021-01-15T19:02:02","modified_gmt":"2021-01-16T00:02:02","slug":"dallas-stars-season-opener-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/01\/15\/dallas-stars-season-opener-announced\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Stars Season Opener Announced"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NHL announced today that the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/stars\/\" target=\"_self\">Dallas Stars<\/a> will open their 2020-21 regular season on Friday, Jan 22nd at home against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/predators\/\" target=\"_self\">Nashville Predators<\/a>. The Stars season has been delayed due to a COVID outbreak amongst the squad.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A five-game Friday includes the first of nine \u2018Battle of Ontario\u2019 contests this season with the expected debut of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Senators?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Senators<\/a> rookie Tim St\u00fctzle on his 19th birthday. The other four games are rematches from season-opening contests.<\/p>\n<p>Full Schedule: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1NlDutmXdL\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/1NlDutmXdL<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NHLStats?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#NHLStats<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/TPtI9fy6H2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/TPtI9fy6H2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NHL Public Relations (@NHLPR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NHLPR\/status\/1350118076575002624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 15, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Jan 22nd will be Dallas Stars Season Opener<\/h2>\n<p>On January 9th, the league postponed Dallas&#8217; back-to-back season opener against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/bluejackets\/\" target=\"_self\">Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a>. This was following the news that six players and two staff members had tested positive for COVID-19 during a routine battery of tests. By January 12th, this number had reportedly risen to 17 out of the 27 players on the roster. Most players were asymptomatic and all were in self-isolation, fulfilling COVID protocols. As a result of the outbreak, the Stars had to close their training facility for four days. They resumed their training camp on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>This means that the Stars&#8217; beginning of the season changes dramatically. Their third and fourth games on the original schedule against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/lightning\/\" target=\"_self\">Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> also had to be postponed. Therefore, instead of four consecutive away games, the Stars will play the Nashville Predators and the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/redwings\/\" target=\"_self\">Detroit Red Wings<\/a> four times at home during their first week of the season. The Dallas Stars&#8217; first puck drop of the season will be against the Nashville Predators at American Airlines Center on January 22nd, 8:30 pm ET.<\/p>\n<h2>What This Means Going Forward<\/h2>\n<p>Overall, a total of 10 games have had to be rescheduled to account for the viral outbreak within the Stars&#8217; roster. When Dallas takes to the ice for the first time next Friday, the rest of the league will have played either three, four or five games respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Dallas Stars&#8217; coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/bowneri01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rick Bowness<\/a> has seemingly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetelegram.com\/sports\/regional-sports\/dallas-head-coach-bowness-weathering-storm-as-stars-covid-cases-spike-541517\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reacted to the situation<\/a> as par for the course for this season. \u201c We usually put out a weekly schedule, telling everybody exactly what we are doing. But at the top of the page, (this season) it reads, \u2018subject to change on a daily basis&#8217;&#8230; We teach our players just to roll with the punches. Whatever happens, we\u2019re going to deal with it. The guys were in great shape and great frame of mind. Now we\u2019re starting all over again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The franchise experiencing the most upheaval from the schedule change aside from Dallas is the<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/panthers\/\" target=\"_self\"> Florida Panthers<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/q\/quennjo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joel Quenneville<\/a>&#8216;s team has had five games rescheduled and one start time change.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"t9l-hkCJRcFQcTGwnYFk9A\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1266652116\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'t9l-hkCJRcFQcTGwnYFk9A',sig:'yTlO2VgMmldbYDPjVMxjBEPoYV19f8sq1MzxEpjzvAM=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1266652116',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The NHL announced today that the Dallas Stars will open their 2020-21 regular season on Friday, Jan 22nd at home against the Nashville Predators. The Stars season has been delayed due to a COVID outbreak amongst the squad. &nbsp; A five-game Friday includes the first of nine \u2018Battle of Ontario\u2019 contests this season with the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1733,"featured_media":91226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4547,29,34,4548],"tags":[4675,102,95,106,1501,243,4082,42],"class_list":["post-98066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-stars","category-news","category-nhl","tag-covid-19","tag-dallas-stars","tag-detroit-red-wings","tag-florida-panthers","tag-joel-quenneville","tag-nashville-predators","tag-rick-bowness","tag-tampa-bay-lightning"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1733"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}