FRISCO, Texas — Dallas Stars defenseman Marc Methot is going to miss at least two more weeks with a knee injury after having a non-surgical procedure earlier this week.
“He skated early in the week and there was still some soreness,” Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said after practice on Friday. “So he had another procedure to eliminate the soreness.”
Methot originally sustained the injury on Nov. 6 against the Winnipeg Jets and had arthroscopic knee surgery on Nov. 19.
He returned to the lineup and played 15 minutes, 32 seconds in 4-3 win against the New Jersey Devils on Jan. 4, but was a late scratch after taking warmups before the Stars 5-1 win against the Edmonton Oilers on Jan. 6 with knee soreness.
“I can’t give you the exact day but he’s going to be evaluated in about 10 days from now,” Hitchcock said. “Then we’ll know the exact date he’ll be ready to play. He and us felt that he could play through what he’s got, but it wouldn’t be good long-term, so we opted to get it done now.”
With Methot out the Stars will recall a defenseman from the AHL, likely Dillon Heatherington, but will still use the same defense against the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday that they used against the Edmonton Oilers before the bye week.
Esa Lindell — John Klingberg
Dan Hamhuis — Greg Pateryn
Stephen Johns — Julius Honka
Hitchcock wouldn’t name the call-up but mentioned there are two players currently in the AHL a cut above the rest on the Stars blue line.
One he doesn’t know personally (Heatherington) while the other is a player he knows well “and can play in this league,” but is recently coming off of injury. That would mean the other call-up option is Brent Regner, a right-handed defender that has played on the first pairing with Heatherington for most of the AHL season.
You can make an ideal case for either Heatherington or Regner to be the call-up.
Heatherington is left-handed, and if the Stars wanted to get the call-up into the lineup with a back-to-back, it would make more sense to have a lefty available. On the flip side, if the Stars were only going to call-up a defender for insurance purposes Regner would make more sense, since he’s a more veteran player and Heatherington is a prospect that you’d rather have playing big minutes than watching NHL games from a press box.
As of Friday morning, both players were still with the Texas Stars in Stockton, California and were likely going to play that evening against the Stockton Heat. That’s a pretty strong indicator that whoever is called up likely won’t take part in morning skate tomorrow, but will be a full practice participant on Sunday before the team flies to Boston.
All-Stars
The NHL All-Star rosters were announced earlier this week and John Klingberg and Tyler Seguin will be representing the Stars in Tampa Bay.
I asked Hitchcock if there was anything that an All-Star Game — a glorified skills competition in a 3-on-3 format — could do for Klingberg’s development as an elite player.
“I think you what you get to understand, especially when you are around older players, guys who have been around it for a little while, I think you learn about the class and the dignity that they operate with,” Hitchcock said. “When you see the professionalism of the veteran players, the guys that have done this for a number of times and how they go about their business, and how they’re so cooperative for the league and the fans and everything it’s humbling.”
Interestingly enough, Seguin is amongst one of the most-seasoned players selected to the All-Star Game this year. With his fifth selection Seguin is amongst one of the senior All-Stars, six other players are making their fifth appearance, while only three — Patrick Kane, Alex Ovechkin, and Carey Price — have made more.
So how does Seguin, a player that’s been around the All-Star game before, plan to show off that class and dignity to an all-star rookie like Klingberg?
“I’m going to mess with him a lot,” Seguin said. “I’m going to tell him all the times we have to be places and all the fan events that we have to attend, and we really don’t have to attend. So hopefully he doesn’t check Twitter and see what I’m saying now, but I look forward to making him feel like a rookie.”
Bye week blues
The bye week didn’t receive many positive reviews when the Stars returned to practice on Friday.
For many players it felt like unneeded time off, especially with the Christmas Break and All-Star Break essentially sandwiching the bye this season.
For those who stayed in town, which was most players, it was a chance to step away from the game, but most still skate informally during the break.
Speaking to a handful of players, it was pretty much consensus that the bye week is good in theory but poorly executed. It would work better in a smaller dose, perhaps a couple extra days off here and there, not a long stretch that forces a back-to-back in the first week back.
Of put it later in the season, perhaps right around the trade deadline. One player suggested taking off three days around the deadline, since it would still be a busy time for the league but players wouldn’t have to worry about movement and teams wouldn’t be in situations where they are pulling players from a lineup late because of a transaction.
Hitchcock also shared his comments on the bye.
“I never talked to one guy today that really enjoyed it,” Hitchcock said. “The comments I got from the players were it was too long. They love the breaks, but if it was more, shorter breaks, I think they would like it more. And it’s not the break itself, it’s trying to start up again. The complaint I got from the players was yesterday some of the guys started to get physical exercise on their own and that was painful, and then today was a day, I’m sure everybody will feel a little bit better tomorrow, but today was a tough day getting started and I think they all felt that the length of the break allowed some of the bruises to start to feel. Whereas before when you’re playing all the time and you’ve got this ongoing routine, you don’t feel some of the soreness, but today they felt a lot of the soreness.”
Practice lineup
I would expect this to be the lineup against the Avalanche, with Gemel Smith serving as the healthy scratch with soon-to-be-called-up seventh defenseman.
Ben Bishop will start in goal, while Kari Lehtonen will play against either the Boston Bruins or Detroit Red Wings during a back-to-back on Monday and Tuesday.
Jamie Benn — Tyler Seguin — Alexander Radulov
Antoine Roussel — Radek Faksa — Tyler Pitlick
Mattias Janmark — Martin Hanzal — Jason Spezza
Remi Elie — Devin Shore — Brett Ritchie/Gemel Smith
Esa Lindell — John Klingberg
Dan Hamhuis — Greg Pateryn
Stephen Johns — Julius Honka
Ben Bishop
Kari Lehtonen
Adam Vaughn says
Like you I played goalie in high school and college, and I absolutely hated any days off as I’d find myself being twice as sore/less flexible the first day back; any good gripes from the players in regards to the bye that perhaps were too blunt/truthful (for lack of better words) to publish?
Sean Shapiro says
Essentially that was the vibe, too many days off, takes a bit to get back into physical rhythm. Nothing overly blunt, just factual and quick to the point about the issue.