The Dallas Stars sent Roope Hintz to the AHL to this morning after he played on the first line last night against the Wild.
Roope Hintz had an impressive camp with the Dallas Stars and made the roster to start the year, but now he’s headed back to the minors.
Last season with the Texas Stars, Hintz had 20 goals, second only to Curtis McKenzie. He also had 35 points, fifth on the team and first among rookie players.
Hintz played in five of the seven games he was on the roster for, but ended up without a point.
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He mostly centered the fourth line while with the Stars. In Friday night’s game, he spent time on the top line with Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin, but didn’t do enough to impress Jim Montgomery.
There has been a concerning lack of scoring from depth players, so a change makes sense. With Hintz being the only forward on the roster exempt from waivers, he’s the logical choice to send down.
There’s been no word from the Stars yet on what this means for the line-up going into Tuesday’s game against the Kings.
Both Valeri Nichushkin and Alexander Radulov missed Friday night’s game with injuries. With Hintz down, there’s an open forward spot for one of them to slot back in. However, if neither of them are ready to go on Tuesday, the Stars will need to make a call-up.
This could potentially be Denis Gurianov, the Stars’ first-round pick in 2015. Gurianov has struggled over the past few years, but was good in camp. He’s playing at a point-per-game pace so far this season and is tied for first on the team in goals.
Another possibility is Nick Caamano, who surprised everyone in 2017 during training camp and preseason. The 2016 fifth-rounder left the OHL and headed to the AHL this season, making it easy for the Stars to call him up.
Both of them are waivers exempt like Hintz, so they could get trial runs in the NHL if Nichushkin and Radulov aren’t ready to go.
Even if they’re both ready by Tuesday, the Stars will still have an open roster slot since neither of them went on IR, so Nill may still decide to call someone up.
It could also mean Stephen Johns is ready to come off of IR to take that roster spot and that the Stars are planning to carry eight defensemen again, at least for now.
No matter what happens with the line-up, this is not the last fans have seen of Hintz. He’s got a lot of promise, but he just might need a little more development time,