Stars coaches using season pause to analyze other NHL teams

Rick Bowness said he and his Dallas Stars coaching staff have spent time taking a closer look at some teams around the NHL with the 2019-20 season paused due to the concerns about the coronavirus.

"In the course of a winter, you have so many games and so much prep work to do, you don't get to sit back and really analyze other teams and what we're doing, and maybe add some things to our team that could help us," the Stars coach said Friday. "Right now myself and my staff are all looking at four or five teams, just taking our time and looking for things that we may add to our team that could help us. Now that we have the time, and lots of it, we can look at things a little more objectively instead of trying to rush through things."
The Stars (37-24-8) are third in the Central Division, 10 points behind the second-place Colorado Avalanche. Dallas went 0-4-2 in its last six games before the NHL pause began March 12 and was shut out in two of its final three.
"We had things going pretty good for a while, then the offense kind of shut down on us for the last four games," Bowness said. "We lost to [the Edmonton Oilers] in overtime (2-1 on March 3), we got shut out back to back against [the Nashville Predators] (2-0 on March 5, 1-0 on March 7) and we had plenty of scoring chances; their goalie (Juuse Saros was sensational. We didn't play well against the New York Rangers, our last game (4-2 loss on March 10). But that happens, and we had full faith in our team that we were going to turn the corner the very next game.
"It was a tough week, but it's a bad week and that's all it was. The team has been in the top 10 all year, we've done a lot of good things, so we prefer to look at the positive. We have confidence in our players, confidence that we were going to turn the corner very quickly."
Bowness, who replaced Jim Montgomery as Stars coach on Dec. 10, said the players are doing what they can to stay in shape.
"All our players have bikes or strength coaches [who] are giving them individual programs," Bowness said. "We'll stay in touch with our players, for sure."
He said he talks with Stars general manager Jim Nill every few days.
"He gives me what he knows," Bowness said. "If there are no updates, there are no updates. I just talked to our staff a couple of days ago and will stay in touch with my staff every couple of days to pass on what I know in terms of what's developing around the League, and more importantly to see how they and their families are doing."

Bowness and his wife are in Arizona visiting their son, Pittsburgh Penguins director of professional scouting Ryan Bowness.
Rick Bowness said he and the Stars will be ready when the season resumes. Until then, it's a matter of adapting to the situation.
"I remember the [strike] in 1992 when I was [coaching] the Boston Bruins," he said. "This is not the same thing obviously, but the uncertainty of whether we would play or not was always there. It's the uncertainty now of what we're doing next.
"We never know when that call is coming and we're going back, so it's our job as a coaching staff to make sure we're ready. It's just like preparing for a training camp. We don't have a specific date, but we'll be ready to start up as soon as we get the green light to go back."