Dallas Stars: What Devin Shore’s Absence From Lineup Means For Stars
For the next handful of games, the Dallas Stars will be missing a staple in their lineup from the past two years. But with Devin Shore on the bench, just what voids will the Stars have to fill?
The Dallas Stars will be minus the services of forward Devin Shore for the next handful of days. That could play a big part in determining the team’s overall success in the coming week.
On Monday night, Shore went down awkwardly in the corner in a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. His leg bent backwards as he hit the ice, and upon getting up, he immediately headed for the tunnel.
That’s a scary injury in and of itself that can sometimes do significant damage. But upon further examination and an MRI, it was announced that Shore would miss one to two weeks of action, though head coach Jim Montgomery told Mark Stepneski of DallasStars.com that it was “probably looking at 10 days max.”
7-10 days isn’t a long amount of time to most people. The NHL regular season is around six months long, so losing a player for 1/24th of that doesn’t seem like too heavy of a burden. On top of that, the diagnosis was three days ago. So, it should be no more than a week before he’s back if everything goes according to plan.
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But when you take into account the curtain state of things and the road that the Dallas Stars have ahead, those days could end up being a tall task.
The month of November presents perhaps the heaviest task of any month on the Stars calendar. They play 15 games in a 28-day span, including three back-to-backs and only five games on home ice. This test became even more difficult over the first few days of the month when John Klingberg, Roman Polak, Marc Methot, Alexander Radulov, and Brett Ritchie all missed portions of time with various injuries.
Though some of them are back, the lineup isn’t fully healthy. Losing Shore is simply another right hook.
After a rough and disappointing performance that ended with a franchise-worst plus-minus rating in 2017-18, Shore has bounced back and looks like one of the Stars’ bigger surprises this season. The former second-round pick is currently fifth on the team in points and tied for third in goals and is doing so in almost two less minutes of ATOI this season.
But the thing that stands out most about the 24-year-old is his durability. Only two players have played in every game from opening night of the 2016-17 season to this past Monday night’s game against Columbus. One is superstar center Tyler Seguin. The other? Devin Shore.
This means that Friday night’s game against Boston will be the first time that the Dallas Stars play a regular season game without Shore in the lineup since April 9, 2016. That’s three coaches, a plethora of different lineups and line combinations, and 182 total games in one of the most physically and mentally trying sports leagues in the world.
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That alone gives a different feel to tonight’s Dallas Stars lineup. With Shore sidelined, the Stars are missing one of their better penalty killers and a member of the second power play unit. He’s been a consistent factor on the Stars’ second line, meaning Mattias Janmark and Gemel Smith will have to pick up the pace on the left wing in his absence.
And in the days to come, Dallas will have a stressful schedule to deal with. Tonight, they close out a four-game homestand against the Boston Bruins, who defeated them in overtime less than two weeks ago. Following that, they hit the road for three straight contests, starting with a back-to-back against the New York Islanders and New York Rangers and finishing with a matchup against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night.
Shore will definitely miss the next three games (including tonight’s contest) and might miss the Pittsburgh game as well, depending on how recovery goes. If that’s the case, the Dallas Stars offense will have to find a way to continue producing without one its more explosive and consistent forwards.
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That could end up being a tough task. But hey, that’s what an NHL regular season is all about. Can the Stars answer the call?