Dallas Stars: Expectations For New Season of Seguin

With the way the chips have fallen in the last few seasons, the Dallas Stars could see a lot come of Seguin this season, if he can stay injury-free and focus on playing to his full ability.

The Dallas Stars will find themselves in a very fortuitous spot this season. While many teams are still scrambling to assemble the best, biggest-names line up, the Stars have already locked downed what seems to be a pretty dependable A-team.

A big part of what has put the offense of the league in the palm of the Stars’ hands is the partnership between Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin. Considered a dynamic duo in the NHL by every standard, these two have contributed in a big way to putting Dallas’s offense on the map.

However, the dynamic duo has suffered a loss at the end of the last few seasons, first with Seguin’s knee injury in 14-15, and then with his tendon injury and calf muscle tear this postseason.

It seemed for sure that Benneguin was just getting revved up toward the close of the 14-15 campaign when Seguin was sent off by that nasty collision, and we were all set to see what kind of damage the pair could cause in a playoff situation when we learned Seguin would be absent from the postseason.

In this upcoming season, what could we expect from the Seguin half of the duo should he be able to shake the injury curse and play through the whole season?

Seguin made it into 72 of the games this season and ended the hockey year out with 33 goals and 73 points overall- an average of at least a point per game. He spent about half a minute less time on the ice per game than the captain,with a TOI/G of 19:26.

This season, his game winning goal tally was 6. He only played in one playoff game, and had one shot to show for it. So statistic-wise, let’s compare to last season.

While it felt like an eternity that Seguin was out last season with his knee injury, he played in 71 games, only one less than this season. He notched 37 goals in that time, with 77 points overall. That season, he had 5 game winners.

So what would happen if we could have mixed this season with last? If we could smoosh together one season in which Seguin played a solid season and one in which he ended the season healthy and continued into the post season? Perfect scenario, right?

That’s what I think we can hope for this season. Recently, Seguin told the folks at Inside Edge that he was feeling great and was looking forward to representing Cananda at the World Cup of Hockey. He started off last summer similarly at the IIHF World Championship. With the Stars coming off a series win in the playoffs, Seguin thinks that will translate to a quick and exciting start of the new season.

We have a whole regular season guaranteed us. We can assume that Seguin will at least meet his 14-15 33 goal count. However, if the season starts off with a bang like he expects and the Stars get rolling early with the fervor they found at the end of their 14-15 campaign, he could blow those numbers out of the water and he and Benn could experience their top year as a duo.

And provided that the Dallas Stars make it to playoffs, Seguin could be poised to have an individually standout postseason, not to mention what the dynamic duo could pull off in that kind of a pressure situation.

It basically comes down to whether Seguin can stay uninjured. Conversely, if Seguin puts too much effort into remaining uninjured instead of focusing on playing to his full ability, it could hold him back from a great season.

Next: Dallas Stars: Will Jamie Benn Ever Peak?

There’s a lot of potential for this upcoming season, in more ways than one. Benn is hitting his stride and will continue to invest in the team for at least the next eight years.

Seguin is on his way to a full season as well if things fall his way. We’ll get to see a preview of the partnership when World Cup time rolls around. But I think it’s safe to say that we could see a lot out of Seguin this season, and with his help, the Stars will just keep rising.