'We believe in our guys': Bowness on scoring, goalies and the year ahead

Rick Bowness will turn 66 on Jan. 25 and is having one of the best runs in his career.
Bowness took over as head coach of the Stars last December -- his first return to head coaching since 2004 -- and led Dallas to the Stanley Cup Final. The Stars lost in six games to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Bowness signed a
two-year contract extension
after the season and will begin training camp this week in preparation for the 2020-21 season.
He talked with DallasStars.combefore the start of camp to discuss the campaign ahead and what he expects from his group:

Because you were able to run a camp in a similar situation before the return to play, does that help in running this camp?
Yeah, it really does. We're going to run a lot of the same camp that we did in July. Now, it's a little shorter, so it's going to be more condensed, but basically be the same format and same drills, and just getting ready for the 14th. There are some areas of the game that we want to clean up and get better at - breakouts, getting our D far more involved, and a lot of time on specialty teams. No Seggy (Tyler Seguin, who is out with a hip injury), no Corey Perry (who signed as a free agent in Montreal), so we need to spend more time on our power play.
How much does the absence of players like Tyler Seguin and Corey Perry change how you look at Roope Hintz and Denis Gurianov?
We have two good units. We really think they will both be equally good units. Everyone considers the unit with Jamie (Benn) and Seggy on it to be the top unit, but in the bubble, the other unit was a lot more effective at times. They were the ones who came up with big goals. We're fortunate to have two good units, and that's how we're going to look at it again.

How do you as a team continue to increase your goal production? You had seven games of five goals or more in the playoffs, but in the end you only ended up averaging 2.85 goals per game. That's an increase over the 2.58 (which ranked 26th) in the regular season, but it still would put you in the lower half of the league. Is 2.85 a good number or do you not get wrapped up in that?
I get wrapped up in creating chances for. If you create enough scoring chances for, you're going to score enough goals. You look at the last game we lost against Tampa, and we had a ton of scoring chances, but the goalie made great saves. You're going to run into great goalies, and if we're creating the chances that we have, we'll live with the results. I believe we'll score enough goals, I'm confident in that.
If you include Mattias Janmark (who signed as a free agent with Chicago) along with Seguin and Perry as missing, the forward group has lost some significant minutes. How do you fill in, especially at the bottom of the lineup?
We're going to be playing some young players. (Jason) Robertson, (Nick) Caamano, they're going to be given an opportunity to play. We've got to get some younger blood in here and a lot of players will get opportunities. It's going to be up to them to show if they can grab that. And it's beyond just the new players, it's Denis, it's Roope, it's Kivi (Joel Kiviranta), they're all going to get good looks. We'll see what (defenseman Thomas) Harley can do when he comes from world juniors, and (goalie Jake) Oettinger is going to play -- there's no question about that. The development of our younger players will play a huge part in how we move forward.

How do you look at the goalies? I know Anton Khudobin played pretty much every game in the playoffs, but he has never been a No. 1 goalie during the regular season. And Jake Oettinger still has to play his first regular season game.
It's a challenge, but we believe in our guys. Oettinger is going to play and Landon Bow might get a game or two. (Goalie coach) Jeff Reese is getting them ready like he always does, so we know they are going to be ready to go.
What did you learn about Jake Oettinger in the bubble?
He didn't play much, but we know he's a hard worker and we know he's a very confident kid. We're confident in what Jake can do. He's a good pro, he's calm, we have all the confidence in the world in him. There are going to be weeks with four games in six nights, so one goalie is not going to do it.

How do you feel about your group of defensemen? They really seemed to step up in the playoffs and now they might be considered one of the deeper groups in the NHL.
We're going to miss Roman Polak and we're going to miss Stephen Johns (who is expected to miss the season with complications after post-traumatic headaches), but you have to deal with those things. I think when you look at John (Klingberg) and Miro (Heiskanen) and Esa (Lindell) and Jamie (Oleksiak), that's a really solid top four. Then, Andrej Sekera and Mark Pysyk are both veteran defensemen who know their roles. Sekera gives us so many important minutes, killing penalties, late in games, and Pysyk is a pro. Then you look at guys like (Joel) Hanley and (Taylor) Fedun, and they are ready to go whenever you need them. Four games in six nights, you're going to need them.
What does it mean to get to the Finals and go through that process, especially for some key players like Miro Heiskanen or Jamie Benn or John Klingberg?
You find out a lot about yourself. Some players, their play dropped a little bit in the Finals. That's a tough thing to play with that kind of pressure, fans or no fans, and I do think players learned some things. You grow from that, and we're counting on our younger players to know that they can play in those pressure situations and understand they can do it.

Does it make it easier or harder this season because you went through that experience?
You take the same approach. When you lose in the Finals, you have to be honest and you have to evaluate why you lost. Sometimes you have to get through there a couple of times and grow from it. I think what we did against St. Louis was a big step forward, and we built on that last season. Would we have liked to have been a healthy team and make a run at it? Absolutely. But we were missing five or six guys, and that's a huge hole in your team. That's not an excuse, we lost some key guys -- and it caught up to us. Everyone who has ever won a Cup has told me that you have to be lucky and you have to be healthy.
What is the impact for this season?
We are now looked at as the Western Conference champions, we went to the Stanley Cup Finals. We will see everyone's `A' game, they will be up for us. We're going to have to take pride in the responsibility that comes with that, and we're going to be preaching that right from the start.

Does this format make things more difficult?
Well, it's going to be intense playing the same teams over and over. We're all going to learn about injuries and we're all going to learn about COVID, so we better be ready.
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heikais a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika, and listen to his podcast.