Dallas Stars Getting Healthy Means Line-up Changes

Often lost in the shadow of the incredible start by the Dallas Stars is the players that have fallen to injury in the months since the regular season started. Among those include forwards Patrick Eaves, Travis Moen, Brett Ritchie, and Curtis McKenzie as well as defensemen Jyrki Jokipakka and Patrik Nemeth.

With that many guys working toward a return to game play the Stars have a few tough decisions to make.

Forwards

One thing Dallas has is a plethora of options for their twelve forward spots. As long as they stay healthy there’s the untouchable group: Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, Jason Spezza, and Patrick Sharp. Then there are the forwards that are almost guaranteed to play: Cody Eakin, Antoine Roussel, Vernon Fiddler, Valeri Nichushkin, and Ales Hemsky.

That leaves the questionable players: Colton Sceviour, and Mattias Janmark. Radek Faksa was a member of this group, but he was sent down earlier in the week.

Eaves made his return to the line-up in Tuesday night’s 3-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres, which was only his fourth game this season. He had no points in 12:22 minutes on the ice.

Moen is said to be back in game shape, but his return to the line-up seems less likely considering how well Janmark has played.

Ritchie injured his wrist early on in the season and was expected to miss a total of three months. He hasn’t found his way into the line-up yet this season, but should be healthy here in a few weeks.

McKenzie was injured in a game on October 15th in Tampa Bay when Nikita Nesterov, a defenseman for the Lightning, violently hit him into the boards, causing a lower body injury. Nesterov was suspended for two-games for boarding the Stars forward and McKenzie was placed on IR after being evaluated by doctors.

As for the other injured forwards it’s going to be a matter of earning playing time, especially for the younger guys on the list. They’ll be battling one another to not be the healthy scratches until inevitably another forward is injured.

Defense

The Stars are also extremely fortunate to have a solid group of defensemen at their disposal. Again, there are a group of untouchables: John Klingberg and Alex Goligoski. The almost guaranteed group includes Jason Demers and Johnny Oduya, leaving two spots up for grabs.

The two players that frequent the third defensive pairing are Jordie Benn and Jamie Oleksiak; however, Jokipakka and Nemeth often replace Oleksiak when they find themselves in the line-up when healthy.

Jokipakka is reportedly dealing with a nagging injury that he is trying to rid himself of, so he will return to the line-up shortly.

Nemeth began a conditioning stint with the Texas Stars of the AHL earlier this week, making his return to play seem right around the corner.

It would be expected that those guys would continue to battle for the sixth defenseman position once as the Swede and Finn get healthy.

Bottom Line

The Dallas Stars are, despite injuries, a good team. Barring a lack of production by Eaves it’d be hard to keep him out of the line-up moving forward in favor of someone like Moen; however, Lindy Ruff is known for his liking of changes up the roster depending on the game and who has earned their spot, so it’s possible he’s a healthy scratch down the line.

On defense Dallas’ best bet is going with Nemeth after his conditioning stint is completed, but if Ruff might opt to go with Oleksiak because of his size against the bigger, more physical teams in the league.

They currently six amongst the best teams in the entire league and we’re almost a quarter of the way done with the season. The Central Division is highly competitive and if the Stars want to keep a hold of their first place spot they’ll have to work hard regardless of who’s in the line-up.

Who do you think is going to be left out of the line-up when everyone’s healthy? Leave your thoughts in the comments and, as always, thanks for reading!

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