A Brief but Comprehensive Update on All the Current Dallas Stars Injuries

Because I can only answer so many of these questions on Twitter

The Dallas Stars practiced at the Children’s Health StarCenter at Farmers Branch today.

Or at least, most of them did. Because as you may have heard once or twice lately, this team is dealing with an injury or two, or five.

So rather than wedge the latest injury information into a portion of a gameday story tomorrow, I decided to just list them all here, with the most recent updates we have, as well as the player’s last game played.

Let’s get started with the player everyone was talking about last night, but who wasn’t at practice on Wednesday.

Mikko Rantanen

Easy there, take a breath—Rantanen is not dealing with any injury that we are aware of. Glen Gulutzan said on Wednesday afternoon (November 5) that Rantanen simply missed practice because of a “maintenance day.”

“He’ll be a game-player tomorrow,” Gulutzan said of Rantanen after practice on Wednesday in Farmers Branch. “I don’t see any reason why Mikko’s not back [Thursday]. Just a little maintenance day for him. Been carrying a lot of minutes.”

Rantanen has played every game for Dallas this season, has 17 points in 13 games, and is averaging 21:41 of ice time per game. Probably he deserves any rest he can get.

Radek Faksa

Faksa last played against Florida over the weekend, and he was a full participant in practice on November 3rd. However, he was not at morning skate before Tuesday’s game against Edmonton the next day, and Gulutzan termed him a “game-time decision.”

Faksa ended up missing that game, and he was likewise absent from practice on Wednesday with what was later termed an illness.

“Radek’s ill,” Gulutzan said on Wednesday. “We should see Radek tomorrow. Hopefully he’s feeling better. Hopefully’s Radek’s back [Thursday].”

Faksa played in the Stars’ first 12 games before missing the contest against Edmonton on Tuesday. He’s averaging 12:18 per night and has 4 points in 12 games.

Matt Duchene

Duchene was hit in the face by Jake Middleton back on October 14, as we’ve discussed multiple times recently. He then sat out a game before returning to play in St. Louis on October 18. He hasn’t played another game since then, and has officially been termed “day to day.”

All indications are that Duchene is still skating and staying in shape, and that he will return as soon as his body is ready to do so.

Gulutzan said on November 3rd that Duchene’s injury is “lingering.” Gulutzan added that Duchene is doing everything he can to try to speed up the recovery process, but they don’t want to rush his return.

Duchene was not diagnosed with a concussion in the immediate aftermath of the hit. Duchene has also participated in various practices and morning skates since that time. He most recently skated with a few other players in an optional practice on October 29.

We haven’t seen Duchene on the ice for a week after that practice, but it’s possible he’s been skating separately or with one or two other injured teammates, as he did as recently as October 28, with Jamie Benn.

Duchene has 2 points in 4 games so far this season, averaging 14:27 in those contests (though he played more than 15 minutes in all but the Minnesota game, which he left early in the third period following the hit).

Jamie Benn

Jamie Benn suffered a collapsed lung during the Stars’ second preseason game of the year, on September 23.

Benn underwent surgery to repair his lung, and he has recently begun skating again, though not with the rest of the healthy players.

Gulutzan said in recent weeks that while there isn’t a large amount of NHL precedent for an injury like Benn’s, one possible timeframe is a 6-8 week estimate from the procedure, which my rough math puts at somewhere close to Thanksgiving. But of course, that’s a general estimate, not a hard date.

On November 3rd, Gulutzan said of Benn, “Hopefully he can start skating sometime this week, with us. That would be nice.”

One can bet that Benn is working as hard as he possibly can to get back as soon as humanly possible.

Benn hasn’t played a regular season game yet this year. He averaged 15:18 in ice time last season while scoring 49 points in 80 games.

Roope Hintz

Hintz didn’t skate with the team or participate in practice or morning skate for a full week after being hit by Taylor Hall in the Stars’ game against Carolina on October 25.

Most recently, Hintz re-joined the team for morning skate on Tuesday 11/4 ahead of the Oilers game, though he didn’t play that night. Gulutzan said on Tuesday that Hintz was not currently in concussion protocol, describing his injury as “upper body.” But we went through that all yesterday, so I won’t re-hash it here.

Hintz also participated in practice on Wednesday at Farmers Branch, centering a line with Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston. He also scored a goal in the competitive shootout the team did at the end of practice.

The Stars’ centerman is officially “day-to-day,” but my guess is that he is closer to returning than Duchene right now.

Hintz has 8 points (7 assists and one empty-net goal) in 8 games for Dallas this year, and he is averaging 19:01 per game.

Nils Lundkvist

Nils Lundkvist began the season with four games for Dallas, but his ice time dipped drastically against Vancouver on October 16, when he played just 11:18. He hasn’t played or practiced publicly since then.

On October 17, Gulutzan confirmed that Lundkvist suffered a lower-body injury. There is currently no more public information about Lundkvist’s injury than that.

“Something happened in-game,” Gulutzan said after practice. “So he’s just gonna have it looked at. We’re pretty optimistic, but we’re gonna have it looked at.”

A couple of days later, that injury was indeed looked at, and the optimism was lessened with this update:

“Nils is gonna be week-to-week,” Gulutzan said. “He’s gonna go on the IR with a lower-body injury. So he’ll be gone for a bit.”

On October 26, the Stars moved Lundkvist from IR to LTIR (retroactive to October 16), which means he won’t be eligible to return until (I believe) November 9 at the earliest. But it’s likely he’ll be out at least a little bit longer than that, given that he isn’t skating with the team in any capacity yet.

Lundkvist has three points in four games this year. In his three games before the injury-shortened Vancouver contest, Lundkvist averaged 17:33 per night on a pairing with Thomas Harley.