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Dallas Stars Daily Links: Spezza Set To Play 1,000th Career Game

Posted on by Tyler Mair

When the Dallas Stars take on the Montreal Canadiens tonight, it will be a special one for Stars alternate captain Jason Spezza. The veteran will be playing in his 1000th career game,  something only a handful over 300 players have done since the NHL was founded 100 years ago.

To put this milestone in perspective, Spezza has teammates that grew up watching him play in the NHL:

“I wanted the mural on my wall and I wanted it to have a Senators logo. And the one name I requested was Jason Spezza,” Dickinson said earlier this month.

…

“I grew up in Toronto and I watched Hockey Night In Canada, Leafs vs. Ottawa Senators all the time,” Tyler Seguin said. “I’ll never forget him. I think the first time I saw him play I was 13 or 14, maybe even younger. He was always such an exciting player.

…

“…I remember watching him a lot,” Devin Shore said. “He was one of my favorite players growing up, which is kind of weird now that we play on the same team.”

Of course, it’s not as if Spezza made it to this point all by himself. He credits his family in helping him get this far:

“Yeah, like I don’t get anywhere near this with the success I’ve had without my wife (Jennifer). She’s the rock of the family. She does a lot of work behind the scenes,” Spezza said… “She won’t want to get recognized, she won’t want to get talked about. But it’s a big reason why I’m here.”

You can read more in Sean Shapiro’s article here.

Stars Stories

Speaking of the game against the Canadiens later tonight, here’s what you might expect to see in the lineup:

Stars’ rookie Miro Heiskanen is turning heads not just locally, but on the national stage as well:

The Stars’ most recent 1st rounder, Ty Dellandrea, is unfortunately in a much different situation:

Central Census

There were only two games last night in the league, one of which featured a division rival: the Minnesota Wild had their five-game winning streak snapped by Elias Pettersson and the Vancouver Canucks. [NHL]

Not gonna lie, everyone; this doesn’t look good:

Around the League

While we’re peeking at the standings, DownGoesBrown talks about the mythical November 1st cutoff and more in his weekend power rankings: [The Athletic]

This is kind of impressive in a weird way:

The big news yesterday? The NHL announced an official sports betting partnership with MGM Resorts: [Sportsnet]

Sorry, Ben Bishop, but your complaints have fallen on deaf ears:

Sad news for Toronto Maple Leafs fans (and really hockey fans in general), as Auston Matthews will reportedly be out for the next month: [NBC Sports]

This is a very good read, weighing each side of the argument for a theoretical implementation of a soft-salary cap:

Finally…

Has Dallas officially taken the title of “most miserable sports city?”

Talking Points