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Dallas Stars 2020-2021 season thread

Longboard Horn

By Longboard Horn
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Longhorn_Fan68
Longhorn_Fan68

Hockey is fun and I love you guys. That's all. Send tweet. 

Gucci_Suit
Gucci_Suit

Our dudes have a +13 goal differential thru 4 games. I’m no astros fan, but that seems significant. 

markstanco
markstanco

1st game in 2 years.

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C-Man

C-Man 27387

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Piggy-backing on LF68's post:

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Stars head coach Rick Bowness rarely speaks sternly. That’s why his tone when discussing Anton Khudobin’s absence from practice on Saturday stood out.

“I have very few rules but you damn well better follow them,” Bowness said.

Bowness said Khudobin missed practice due to an “internal issue that we’ll deal with internally.” Bowness wouldn’t expand on a timeline for Khudobin’s absence, saying the team would take it one day at a time. Bowness did declare rookie goaltender Jake Oettinger as the starter for Sunday afternoon’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks.

Though it isn’t known what exactly transpired that led to the disciplinary action, the context of the situation is important to consider. Bowness is a players’ coach and has the respect of the entire locker room. That respect doesn’t simply fall back on the fact that no coach in the history of the sport has been behind the bench for more games. Bowness is one of the better communicators in the NHL and has a good rapport with not only the leadership group but the entire roster. He said that’s how he’s dealing with Khudobin’s situation as well.

“We do it very openly. We communicate very openly here,” Bowness said. “We’re a family. We’ll deal with things internally but you deal with things by communicating and making your feelings known, what is and what isn’t acceptable.”

Often times, coaches will use lesser player slipping up as an opportunity to send a message, because the ramifications on game day are minimal. That’s not the case with Khudobin, who came into this season accounting for 100 percent of NHL starts between goaltenders on the Stars roster. He is the de facto No. 1 goaltender, at least until starter Ben Bishop’s projected return in March.

On the hockey side of things, it’s tough to assess the impact without knowing a timeline. If this is a short-term absence, the Stars can manage it by riding Oettinger. If it extends into any significant amount of time, things can get dicey very fast. Oettinger is expected to be the future of the franchise in the crease, but in the present, he’s very much a prospect just developing under the NHL spotlight.

Before Khudobin re-signed with the Stars last offseason and Bishop was ruled out until March recovering from knee surgery, Oettinger was expected to be the starting goalie for the AHL affiliate Texas Stars. General manager Jim Nill had said Oettinger is knocking on the door of the NHL but still had some work to do. His role this season was to simply give Khudobin some breathers in an extraordinarily compressed NHL schedule, allowing the 34-year-old Russian goaltender to stay fresh while also allowing the 22-year-old rookie to play games for his development.

Through eight games this season, Oettinger has started two, going 2-0 and coming in for mop-up duty in one more during a lopsided loss. He’s had good moments and bad, perhaps his best trait being not collapsing under adversity when he lets in a few untimely goals. The Stars have also helped Oettinger quite a bit, scoring seven goals in his first start and six goals in his second. Oettinger allowed three goals in each of those games. Oettinger’s backup during Khudobin’s disciplinary absence will be taxi squad goaltender Landon Bow. Bow has never started an NHL game but did play in relief a couple of times in the 2018-19 season. He played 30 games in the AHL last year with the Texas Stars, posting a 0.895 save percentage.

Again, there’s no timeline for Khudobin’s absence. In the past, there have been situations where the discipline was just a one-game absence and things moved on. Almost two years ago, forward Alexander Radulov was late for morning skate and then-head coach Jim Montgomery benched him for one game. Radulov scored a hat trick in his first game back. Along the lines of Radulov, for clarity purposes, he was also absent from practice on Saturday but Bowness dubbed that a lower-body injury and said Radulov was day-to-day, indicating it wasn’t related to whatever transpired with Khudobin.

Goaltending is the backbone of the defense-first style of hockey the Stars play. Khudobin has been at the core of that for the past two seasons and is an important part of their present. For the Stars to continue succeeding this season, the hope would be that this just a bump in the road.

https://theathletic.com/2371818/2021/02/06/anton-khudobin-dallas-stars-goalie-bowness/

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vtaenz

vtaenz 602

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18 hours ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

So I’m guessing a wicked hangover caused him to miss/be late for a practice. 

I always like hearing the stories of old time hockey. The culture has changed quite a bit, but you'll still run into guys in beer league that can put them away like it's the 70s.

 

 

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Sweetnsourpoke

Sweetnsourpoke 171

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On 2/7/2021 at 11:03 AM, vtaenz said:

I always like hearing the stories of old time hockey. The culture has changed quite a bit, but you'll still run into guys in beer league that can put them away like it's the 70s.

 

 

Thanks for posting. Good stuff. 

I keep in touch with several guys that played for the Dallas Black Hawks at the ol Fair Park. Gonna share this one. I miss old time hockey. 

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