As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, and NHL has adjusted more than their standard operating procedures to try to pull off a healthy, safe season. On top of restrictions on who has access to players, limits on the size of travel parties for road games, where players can and can’t go on the road, and other similar measures, they league has had to devise an easy way around something well beyond their control: border crossing restrictions.
Because the NHL had to put all of the Canadian teams into one division in order to even get a season off the ground, that forced some realignment within the U.S. For the new Central Division, they got the biggest changes — a mix of East and West, new and old. One thing Dallas Stars fans can be excited about is not having a slate full of 8:30/9:30 PM local time starts by being forced out to the west coast — a boon to our collective sleep schedules.
We’ve kicked off a series here at SB Nation to introduce each team within the new Central by posing five simple questions to each of our new mates about their team:
1) How would you describe your team’s style of play?
2) What players should opposing fans know the name of – and why?
3) Why could your team win the division?
4) Why could your team be the caboose of the division?
5) On a scale of baby kitten to Tiger King, what’s the potential of the heated matchup of your team with your new division mates?
Today’s intelligence briefing comes courtesy of Winging It In Motown, where they had to sit through one of the worst seasons in modern history. The team not only earned only 39 points last season, they even somehow managed to not have a top three draft pick this offseason for the effort.
The WIIM crew described their team as “kind of like the person who excitedly leaps onto the dance floor and tries to flop into doing the worm but instead smashes their face on the ground and is immediately knocked unconscious.” They also didn’t pass up a chance to remind Stars fans that they were part of the team’s spiraling start to last season:
You might think that rekindled division/conference rivalries with Columbus (never won a playoff game against Detroit), Dallas (some fun late 90’s disdain) or Nashville (screw you, Shea Weber) would also be pretty fun and there’s a good chance of that. Detroit gave Dallas a nice punch to the nose to start last year and that put an awful shock into that fanbase. This season they’ll have a chance to do similar things, but I think mostly these teams are going to be worried about bigger things.
Check out more on what we can expect in the eight games the Stars will play against the Detroit Red Wings here.