Stars Daily September 25: Captain Benn responsible for keeping pulse of the team

The Dallas Stars didn’t practice on Sunday and it made sense.

With three preseason games in four days and a back-to-back on Monday and Tuesday, switching to an off-ice day on Sunday was in the players’ best interests and Jamie Benn was included in that decision.

In fact, Benn is included now in almost every team decision. That’s how Ken Hitchcock is keeping the pulse of the team and how he utilizes Benn’s role as captain.

“When we make a schedule change, I text him. When we want his opinion on the mood of the team, I ask him,” Hitchcock said. “So I asked him every day or every couple of days, ‘give me a feel for the pulse of the team.’ And the more you include, the more you form a partnership, the bigger the bond is and the more responsible the player gets.

“We value his opinion, we want his opinion. We want his thoughts and if he feels strongly about stuff we want him to have the courage to change our mind,” Hitchcock added. “And he’s been able to do that. Today is a perfect example, we were going one direction. We went another, we wanted his opinion — he agreed with it, thought it was a good idea. He talked to players after the game, got a feel for how the game was (in St. Louis) and we felt today was better to go off ice if we were going to be aggressive this next week.”

Benn’s leadership on and of the ice is something to watch this season. He’s said himself he believes Hitchcock can make him a better captain and believes that will help the team.

Waiver watch

Andrew Bodnarchuk, Ludwig Bystrom, Justin Dowling, Mike McKenna, and Mark McNeill were all placed on waivers Sunday.

Those five players have until noon ET (11 a.m. CT) to clear, and then they will be sent to the Texas Stars.

Catch-up links

My Stars season preview ran on NHL.com this weekend with five keys and a potential roster rundowns.

Hitchcock gave his thoughts on the lineup with specifics on a couple players including Oleksiak, Honka, Roussel, Dickinson, and Shore.

Today’s schedule

The Stars have morning skate at 10:30 a.m. in Frisco. The non-game group will practice after that. All skates in Frisco are open to the public, tonight’s preseason game still has tickets remaining for as low as $7 at Ticketmaster.