Stars open their season as ex-TV/radio voice gets good news against cancer
The Dallas Stars will (finally) begin their season on Friday night, but before discussing the rather large obstacle that awaits the team here’s an update on a former Star.
Back in September, when the Stars were winning their way through the Stanley Cup playoffs, former team radio and TV voice Ralph Strangis revealed he was fighting bladder cancer.
Strangis, who now lives in Palm Springs, California, and will turn 60 next month, said he is wrapping up his treatments.
“Best possible outcome. Clean today,” he wrote via text Wednesday after seeing his doctor. “Maintenance — three treatments three months from now. That’s awesome.”
Agreed.
He said he feels about 80 percent. He has been riding his bike, and is training to complete a 60-mile ride on his birthday with his daughter.
“I golf. Hike,” he said. “I’m good.”
Whatever the Dallas Stars do this season, it’s going to be difficult to top that news.
Now, about the large obstacle that awaits the Dallas Stars, and it’s not just the slew of postponements that NHL teams are dealing with this season.
The Stars’ first five games of this shortened regular season were all postponed because of COVID-related issues. The team will host Nashville Predators twice this weekend, on Friday and Sunday nights, before about 5,000 fans at the American Airlines Center.
Every other NHL team has played at least two games, to as many as five, while the Stars have played zero.
Before the game, they will unveil their 2020 Western Conference champions banner, earned last fall in the NHL’s Edmonton bubble where they ultimately lost the Stanley Cup Final in six games to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Stars are well aware of the history of teams that went all the way to the Stanley Cup Final the previous season, and lost, and how they fare the following year.
Since the Stars lost the Stanley Cup Final against New Jersey in 2000, only one other runner-up has gone on to win it all the following year.
For the purposes of the Stars’ 2021 season, the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins are the model. In 2008, they lost to the Detroit Red Wings in the Final. Twelve months later in the Final, Pittsburgh defeated Detroit.
Typically, a team is too tired and beat up to follow it up with an extended playoff run the next year.
“It’s a combination of things. The opponent is well aware of our season last year,” Stars head coach Rick Bowness said Thursday. “That automatically gets the opponent’s attention a bit more.”
Since 2000, the runner-ups have made the playoffs all but four times the next year, and reached the Final once.
In 2001, the year after the Stars lost the Final against New Jersey, they were swept in the second round by the St. Louis Blues.
“It’s hard to tell with other teams. I’ve done it once with San Jose,” Stars veteran forward Joe Pavelski said Thursday.
Pavelski was with San Jose in 2016 when the Sharks reached the Final. In 2017, they lost in the Western Conference semifinals.
“Every year is a little different. Couple of different injuries. New guys coming in,” Pavelski said. “You have to have a sense of respect for a new beginning. Understanding the commitment it took to get [to the Final]. The work ethic and grind of the regular season. There is a level we’ll have to get to early on.”
Much like last year’s Stanley Cup playoffs, which were held in bubble after the league had to “pause” because of COVID, this is not a typical season
The season is only 56 games, and as the Stars know it’s already messy.
What applied before may not apply now, because none of this has ever been done.
Virtually the entire team that made that fun run to the Stanley Cup Final is back and intact. The exception is center Tyler Seguin, who is out as he recovers from hip surgery.
“We have to replicate the emotion and passion we played with in the Cup Final. That’s the challenge for any coach and team that got to the Final and lost,” Bowness said. “We’ve talked a lot about it. Hopefully we put last year behind us.
“We didn’t win. We have to get better. It’s the opposition, and our internal battle. It’s a big battle.”
They don’t compare, but Ralph Strangis is winning his big battle, which will make watching the Stars a little more more enjoyable.
