DALLAS (AP) The Dallas Stars are finally set to open their season, more than 10 months after playing their last home game, nearly four months after losing the deciding Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final and a week after every other NHL team got back on the ice.

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. That came after the NHL revealed Jan. 12, two days before their anticipated opener, that the Stars accounted for well more than half of the 27 players among nine teams that tested positive during the abbreviated two weeks of training camps. The defending Western Conference champions now open at home Friday night against Nashville.