The Dallas Stars announced “Good News Monday” via Twitter on January 3, with the hope that the news holds true heading into play this week.
The Stars reported on Monday “ten players were removed from the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols, which gave the club its first (almost) full capacity practice in several weeks” on their National Hockey League (NHL) webpage.
Radek Faksa, Luke Glendening, Jani Hakanpaa, Miro Heiskanen, Roope Hintz, Joel Kiviranta, Esa Lindell, Michael Raffl, Jason Robertson, and Ryan Suter were all cleared to play this week. The hockey club also announced yesterday that team captain, Jamie Benn, had exited COVID-19 protocols by the League.
This news follows six-straight postponed games because of the League’s COVID-19 protocols. The last time the Stars took the ice in an NHL game was in December, when they beat the Minnesota Wild 7-4.
Stars General Manager Jim Nill also recently announced the club had reassigned Ty Dellandrea, Rhett Gardner, Riley Tufte, and goaltender Adam Scheel from the Taxi Squad to the Texas Stars, Dallas’ top development affiliate in the American Hockey League (AHL), where they will be forwards.
The Stars look to get back into action tomorrow, when they host Florida Panthers ahead of this Saturday’s game against the Pittsburg Penguins. Both games, played at the American Airlines Center, can be seen on Bally Sports Network, and tickets for the contests are available here and here.
Stars head coach Rick Bowness said in a press conference on January 4 that the Star’s 17-day streak of no games will likely be perceptible on Thursday night against the Panthers.
“It’s been 17 days since we’ve played, and that’s going to be noticeable,” Bowness said. “But there’s nothing we can do about that. We’ve skated them. We’ve worked as hard as we could with the numbers that we’ve had, the guys that have been sick, they need time to get back get their legs back under them, and there’s no question that that first period on Thursday it could be a struggle, but hopefully, it’s not.”