The second Dallas Stars tenure of head coach Ken Hitchcock officially begins on Friday night as the team celebrates its silver anniversary in Dallas after the former Minnesota North Stars relocated south to the Lone Star State. On Friday night, the Stars play host to the expansion Vegas Golden Knights in the first regular season game in the new franchise's history.

In the 25 years since franchise relocation, the Stars are 16-3-4 in their home openers coming into this year; 11-1-3 since the opening of American Airlines Center.

Friday's game time is 7:30 p.m. CDT. The game will be televised on Fox Sports Southwest. For the Stars, it the start of a set of back-to-back games. On Saturday, Hitchcock will coach against his most recent previous team in a Central Division road showdown with the St. Louis Blues.

Throughout his coaching career, Hitchcock's stock in trade has been his relentless insistence on two-way hockey. In recent seasons, the Stars have too often tried to live off a high-powered offense and outscore their mistakes. Mission number one for Hitchcock is to get buy-in for shoring up the team defense and to get more consistent goaltending than the team has had in several years.

Stars general manager Jim Nill made some off-season personnel changes aimed toward shoring up the team's overall game to suit Hitchcock's preferred style of play.

The club signed veteran goalie Ben Bishop to take over from the 1A/1B tandem arrangement of Kari Lehtonen and the bought-out Antti Niemi (Lehtonen still remains with the Stars). Marc Methot was brought in to eat minutes on the blueline. Injury-prone veteran two-way center Martin Hanzal is expected to be deployed in similar fashion to how Hitchcock utilized Michal Handzus during Hitchcock's years in Philadelphia.

Veteran Russian forward Alexander Radulov was signed to add another offensive threat to the mix. The return of versatile two-way forward Mattias Janmark after missing the entire 2016-17 season should also help what is a deep forward corps even with the loss of Cody Eakin (now a member of Vegas) and departure of veteran Patrick Sharp over the offseason.

Nevertheless, the Stars are still very much captain Jamie Benn's team as well as Tyler Seguin and offensive-minded defenseman John Klingberg. These players will bet the ones who need to lead the way in balancing their skills at pushing the attack offensively with the structure-comes-first system that Hitchcock harps upon relentlessly to the point of nitpicking.

Over the years, Hitchcock has often set out to remake aspects of his top players' games. He doesn't mind tension or conflict. Those who have adapted, such as Stars legend Mike Modano or Keith Primeau and Simon Gagne in Philadelphia, have often gone on to play the best all-around hockey of their careers. The push-pull dynamic between Seguin and Hitchcock in particular will be a fascinating one to watch; perhaps somewhat like the battle of wills and barbs between Hitch and Jeremy Roenick that worked because, for all of their differences, both men wanted to win.

While the Stars have a definite identity in mind for the retooled team, the Vegas Golden Knights are trying to establish one of their own. As is often the case with expansion teams early in their existence, there isn't much offensive firepower. However, there are plenty of hard-working character players and a proven veteran starting goaltender in Marc-Andre Fleury.

One of the few bonafide scoring weapons on the Vegas roster is former Stars winger James Neal. However, Neal is recovering from off-season hand surgery and is questionable for the opener in Dallas. Veteran defenseman Clayton Stoner is on injured reserve.

Join the Discussion: » 0 Comments » Post New Comment

» NHL Statement on Stars' COVID Situation

» SCF: Tampa wins Stanley Cup with 2-0 Shutout

» SCF: Stars Extend Series to a Game 6 w/ Double OT win

» SCF: Stars Have No Time to Lament What Could Have Been

» SCF: Uphill Climb Falls Short Again in Game 3