FRISCO, Texas — Ken Hitchcock has picked out his six defensemen for opening night.
No, he won’t tell you who they are.
But making an educated guess by looking at recent comments, lines, and player usage in preseason games this appears to be the pecking order.
Esa Lindell — John Klingberg
Marc Methot — Jamie Oleksiak
Dan Hamhuis — Stephen Johns
That would mean Julius Honka will likely start the season as a healthy scratch or in the AHL. It also means the Stars will have to figure out how they want to handle Patrik Nemeth and Greg Pateryn.
Based on Hitchcock’s comments, that projected group will likely be the defensive core for at least the first five games of the season.
“My experience is at the start of the year is all you do is look at the first five games,” Hitchcock said. “You have an idea, you look at the first five games, and then you evaluate it after five games. Then you see what’s obvious. If it’s gonna work, or whatever.”
At forward Hitchcock said he doesn’t have his 12 players for opening night finalized yet, but there are a couple forward combinations he’s locked in.
Hitchcock likes Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin on a line, he’s also locked in Mattias Janmark and Jason Spezza. Tyler Pitlick and Radek Faksa have also become a two-some in Hitchcock’s mind, while he’s still looking for a partner to play with Martin Hanzal.
Once Hitchcock has a pair, he tends to juggle and move around the third forward. But the pairs often stay together for much of the season.
Hanzal practices
Martin Hanzal participated in his first full practice on Thursday.
Hanzal, 30, injured his left ankle in an informal scrimmage in early September. He said he wants to push it in practice over the next two days and will play in Saturday’s preseason finale against the Minnesota Wild.
“I felt pretty good today, it was the first skate on the ice with the guys and it was a long one too,” Hanzal said. “It’s great to be back with the guys on the ice and have an actual line, and all the drills.”
Hanzal was skating on a line with left wing Antoine Roussel and Devin Shore. That’s a combination that Hitchcock said could work well together in the regular season.
“It’s always a process to find the chemistry with the right people on the same line,” Hanzal said. “Sure, it’s going to take a while. But it’s always like that when you have a new team.”
Maintenance days
Jamie Benn didn’t practice on Thursday and was held out by the coaching staff.
“Just so everybody knows, he’s on maintenance. He’s going to be maintenance,” Hitchcock said. “Anybody that came off a form of rehab or conditioning, we put them in a conditioning phase. We’ve told them when we’re putting them back on the ice. We’re going to do the same thing with three other players so we get a body of work. They’ll skate on their own, they’ll skate with Stan, and then they’ll join the group when we think they’re at 100 percent. We think a guy is 90 (percent), and we’ve got all kinds of time, we’re going to take advantage of it.”
What about Benn put him in that program? Wasn’t he healthy this summer?
“There isn’t an injury issue, there is a wanting to start at 100 percent issue both on fitness and on durability,” Hitchcock said. “I don’t want to go in there having anyone nurse an injury from exhibition, he got banged around in exhibition. So I prefer to do it this way, so that we’re at 100 percent when we start the season … I feel like I would rather have a guy at 100 percent fitness wise and conditioning wise and we’ll go from there.”
Hitchock wouldn’t name the other three players going into the maintenance program, but said if you looked at players who had offseason surgeries that would be a strong indication.
That likely means Tyler Seguin (shoulder), Tyler Pitlick (knee), and Mattias Janmark (knee) would be subject to maintenance days.
Practice lines
Remie Elie — Tyler Seguin — Alexander Radulov
Mattias Janmark — Jason Spezza — Brett Ritchie
Antoine Roussel — Martin Hanzal — Devin Shore
Gemel Smith — Radek Faksa — Tyler Pitlick
Curtis McKenzie — Roope Hintz/Jason Dickinson — Adam Cracnkell
Esa Lindell — John Klingberg
Marc Methot — Jamie Oleksiak
Dan Hamhuis — Stephen Johns
Patrik Nemeth — Greg Pateryn
Julius Honka
Ben Bishop
Kari Lehtonen
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