The St. Louis Blues have removed the interim tag from Drew Bannister's title and named him their full-time coach.

Winnipeg forward Vladislav Namestnikov was taken to the hospital for evaluation after a puck hit him on the left side of his face in Game 4 against Colorado.

The NHL trade deadline is still three weeks away, and yet three of the top teams in the Western Conference have already made an addition.

Chandler Stephenson scored twice and the Vegas Golden Knights eliminated the Winnipeg Jets from their Western Conference opening-round series with a 4-1 victory in Game 5.

Four men got on the NHL coaching carousel in the offseason and have all landed in the playoffs with their new teams.

Pete DeBoer is jumping right back into coaching with the Dallas Stars about a month after he was fired by the Vegas Golden Knights.

The Dallas Stars have hired Peter DeBoer as their new coach.

Rick Bowness will not return as the coach of the Dallas Stars.

The New York Rangers were on the brink of elimination when they came back from Pittsburgh earlier in the week after two bad losses on the road.

The pressure is squarely on the Florida Panthers, New York Rangers and Calgary Flames down two games to one in their respective first-round series.

Joe Pavelski scored twice and got the game-winner on the first power-play goal in the series for Dallas as the Stars beat the Calgary Flames 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round Western Conference playoff series.

Injuries are threatening to tip the balance of a handful of first-round series around the NHL playoffs.

The NHL playoff race is going into its final few days with both Western Conference wild-card slots still unsettled.

Roope Hintz and Joe Pavelski scored 75 seconds apart late in the third period, and the Dallas Stars stopped Pittsburgh’s 10-game win streak with a 3-2 victory over the Penguins.

Dallas Stars goalie Ben Bishop’s career is over because of a degenerative condition in his right knee.

New York Rangers coach David Quinn of the New York Rangers stands behind the bench during the team's NHL hockey game against the Washington Capitals on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021, in New York. (Bruce Bennett/Pool Photo via AP)The NHL revised its virus protocols in a bid to keep the shortened season on track, but not before a fifth team was idled by COVID-19 problems. Hours after the league announced changes visible in arenas and important behind the scenes, Colorado joined the growing list of U.S.-based teams shut down for virus concerns. Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog joined teammate Tyson Jost on the league's COVID-19 unavailable list Thursday. Bettman said fewer than half the players in protocol have been because of a confirmed positive test and many of those were asymptomatic.

San Jose's Erik Karlsson (65) handles the puck against Minnesota Wild's Nick Bjugstad (27) in the third period of an NHL hockey game Sunday, Jan. 24, 2021, in St. Paul, Minn. San Jose won 5-3. (AP Photo/Stacy Bengs)With an outbreak delaying the Dallas Stars' opener, Rick Bowness got to watch a lot of hockey in the first couple of nights of the NHL season. “It was entertaining hockey, but it was a little sloppy,” Bowness said. “We’re staying in 5-star hotels, get to play hockey, so I can’t complain,” defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic said. Ad___Follow AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno on Twitter at https://twitter.com/SWhyno___More AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

... That was a special moment.”Joe Pavelski had two goals and two assists and Alexander Radulov also scored twice for the Stars, who had a scoreless first period. Five of Dallas’ goals came in the second, including three on the power play and an unassisted short-handed wrist shot by Esa Lindell. Pavelski and Kiviranta added power-play goals in the third period, those against Pekka Rinne, who entered after Saros allowed five goals on 20 shots. CAPTAIN HURTStars captain Jamie Benn was injured when his right leg buckled awkwardly after a collision with Viktor Arvidsson in the second period. Three of the shots game in the first period, including a wraparound attempt into Khudobin’s pads and a hard second shot on the rebound.

The Stars' return comes after 17 players tested positive for COVID-19, even though most were asymptomatic. Their first four scheduled games, all on the road and including an early Stanley Cup Final rematch with Tampa Bay, were postponed. “Right now, listen, we're all ready for a game,” Stars coach Rick Bowness said after practice Thursday at their home arena. Now the Stars are the last team to open the NHL's 56-game, division-only regular season. About 5,000 fans will be allowed for Stars games, well below the hockey capacity of 18,532, though the NBA's Dallas Mavericks are playing their home games there without fans.

For Peter Laviolette, his Washington Capitals will keep playing for the next week without four prominent players who broke the rules. There's no indication the Capitals are being shut down, though they will have to play the next four games without captain Alex Ovechkin, No. The NHL defers to local authorities, and the minimum four games for the Capitals players relates to the District of Columbia's quarantine regulations. The Hurricanes have so far had three games postponed because of their outbreak and won't play for at least a week. I think that’s really what we’re going to find out.”___AP Sports Writers Aaron Beard and Stephen Hawkins contributed.

The NHL did not specify which team prompted the postponement, though four Hurricanes players were added to the COVID-19 list Tuesday. The NHL already postponed the start of the Dallas Stars' season after six players and two staff members tested positive for the virus. Hurricanes players Warren Foegele, Jordan Martinook, Jaccob Slavin and Teuvo Teravainen joined captain Jordan Staal on the unavailable list because of COVID-19 protocols. The teams aren’t scheduled to play again in Nashville until the end of the season with back-to-back games on May 7-8. Now the Predators, who gave players Tuesday off after the postponement, are scheduled to visit Dallas on Friday night for the Stars' season opener.

The Stars are still Bowness' team. Dallas officially removed the interim tag Thursday and gave the 65-year-old Bowness a two-year contract, making him the franchise's 24th head coach, and ninth since moving to Dallas in 1993. Bowness was 20-13-5 after becoming their interim head coach. The Stars made it to the Stanley Cup final even while dealing with a plethora of significant injuries. That would have been a lot more interesting if we had been a healthy team,” Bowness said.

After consecutive games with three-goal periods, Tampa Bay has all of the momentum and a 2-1 series lead. Dallas' top line is without a goal against Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay then went ahead in Game 3 with two goals in an 85-second span before three goals in the second period of a 5-2 win. The NHL is playing Stanley Cup Final games on back-to-back nights for the first time since 2009, when Detroit won each of the first two games against Pittsburgh, which eventually won the series in seven games. In its only back-to-back this postseason, Tampa Bay won Games 2 and 3 in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs against Boston.

EDMONTON, AB – Dallas Stars players on the bench yelled at their teammates, “Hit ’em!” They did, over and over, the body checks and the shouts easily heard throughout an arena left empty because of the pandemic for this most unusual Stanley Cup Final. The Stars, who grinded their way through the playoffs with tight-checking toughness, came out hitting, knowing the Lightning are not fully healthy. Defenseman Esa Lindell also got into the action early with Point, cross-checking him and leveling him in open ice. Dallas is trying for its first title since 1999 and Tampa Bay since 2004, though this Lightning core reached the final in 2015. General manager Julien BriseBois on Friday ruled out Stamkos for Game 1 but left open the possibility he could play this series.

EDMONTON, AB – The leaves are starting to change color around the NHL playoff bubble, and, at most, seven games remain before the Stanley Cup is handed out. On Saturday night, two of the league's southernmost teams begin a Stanley Cup Final like none other in the great white north when the Dallas Stars and Tampa Bay Lightning face off in Game 1. “This is unlike any other Stanley Cup final where we’d get days rest,” coach Jon Cooper said. Some things to watch in the Dallas-Tampa Bay Stanley Cup Final:RUSSIAN GOALIESIt's the first time in NHL history that the final features two Russian starting goaltenders. Nikolai Khabibulin is the only Russian goalie to win the Stanley Cup when he did so with Tampa Bay in 2004.

The Stars are going to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 20 years. Benn and Joel Kiviranta, a rookie like Gurianov, had goals in the final 10:06 of regulation to tie Game 5 of the Western Conference Final. “We’re a confident group.”The Stars also won 3-2 in Game 3 against Vegas, when Alexander Radulov scored 31 seconds into OT. ,,, Seguin had two blocks only seconds apart on the first Vegas power play in the second period. UP NEXTThe Stars wait to find out who and when they play in the Stanley Cup Final.

Welcome to the NHL's first Final Four.Because of the unique circumstances of the Stanley Cup playoffs amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Eastern and Western Conference finals are taking place in the same city, giving it a feel like college basketball's signature event, even though games are being played in an empty arena. The end goal of winning a title is the same, but the Lightning, Golden Knights, Stars and New York Islanders will always be able to say they made hockey's 2020 final four. When we started this, we said lets play one series at a time and lets see if we can get to Edmonton, Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. You have to celebrate the moments because those moments don't come by very much. Its nice to see it live when you can, Stars coach Rick Bowness said.

Kiviranta was playing only his third postseason game, with Andrew Cogliano unfit to play, after scoring once in 11 regular-season games. There had never been an NHL Game 7 played at a neutral site before the two games. The series was back and forth, starting from Game 1 and tonight the game itself was no different. The Stars beat the Avs in the Western Conference finals in 1999 and 2000 to make it to the Stanley Cup final. His sixth power play goal matched Joe Sakic (1996) for the second-most in an Avalanche postseason behind Michel Goulets seven in 1985.

In this photo provided by the Dallas Stars NHL hockey team, interim head coach Rick Bowness watches practice in Frisco, Texas, Tuesday, July 14, 2020. You get out there and you miss it, the Dallas Stars coach said. You realize how much you enjoy being out there.The NHLs oldest head coach still worries about COVID-19 but not enough to stop doing his job. Im going to have to adjust to it, there is no question. The average age of the 24 head coaches in the playoffs is just under 54, the second-oldest behind the NBA among North Americas four major professional sports leagues.