Friday Dallas Stars Roundup: Team Canada Needs Thomas Harley, Sam Steel's Extension, and How the Stars' Cap Crunch for Next Year Is Already Apparent

Let's dig in to a lot of things on a hockey-less Friday

Surprise, surprise: Team Canada will get to have a seventh defenseman join them for practice today after all.

Obviously nobody is suggesting that Jon Cooper put some rumbly-tumbly pills in Cale Makar’s coffee this morning in a gentleman’s arrangement to get Harley some reps in practice. And of course nobody is also suggesting that Team Canada would prefer to have Harley come in for Shea Theodore to take his power play minutes rather than turning to their seventh defenseman, Travis Sanheim. Obviously, nobody is suggesting that. I can’t stress that enough, in writing.

But take a look at this kicker from Matt Larkin’s piece yesterday on Canada’s defensive depth:

Theoretically, Canada can get by without Theodore. They still have plenty of puck-moving ability from Cale Makar, Josh Morrissey, Devon Toews and Doughty, and Canada will also continue getting help from up front with so many elite two-way forwards to support their defense. But what happens if another blueliner goes down?

Well, with Makar falling ill today, Canada got permission to bring Harley in for practice, and I’ll be shocked if they don’t find a way to keep him in the fold throughout the tournament, for one reason or another. “Game-time decision” seems like a phrase we could see over the next few days.

Makar, Morrissey, Toews, and Doughty are all outstanding players. But without Theodore, the fifth blueliner Canada brought to the 4 Nations Face-Off is (the mildly surprising selection of) Colton Parayko, who was one of the weaker links of Canada’s blue line on Wednesday, if you can call anything about that stacked team “weak.” But we’re speaking in relative terms here, and the fact is, adding Travis Sanheim next to either Drew Doughty or Parayko doesn’t exactly feel like it makes Canada better.

Adding Thomas Harley, however, does feel like that, on account of he is really, really good. Sanheim is more of a steady presence who can also skate very well, but also someone who hasn’t even been running the Flyers’ top power play this year, but who can play a ton of minutes. Harley is more more of a direct Theodore replacement, in terms of role and ability, and if Canada had their druthers, I think they’d prefer to slot him in over Sanheim.

But the rules of the tournament, which seem to have been hastily scrawled on a Tim Horton’s napkin Tuesday night, dictate that Canada can’t use one injury to open their roster for business. So while you’d think Canada will keep pressuring the NHL behind the scenes (or in the media) to let them do what they want in the sacred name of “best on best,” we’ll have to wait and see whether Harley actually gets game action or not.

Right now, Cooper expects Makar to be healthy for Saturday’s big game against the USA, so that would mean another defenseman would have to go down. The most likely scenario at this point, I think, is for Canada to announce that a defenseman got “banged up” after Saturday’s game (which is sure to be a physical one), allowing Canada to bring in Harley for their third game against Finland.

That game might end up being crucial, because here’s the table right now:

USA: 3 points
Canada: 2 points
Sweden: 1 point
Finland: 0 points

The nightmare at this point for Canada is that they lose to the USA tomorrow night after Sweden defeats Finland in regulation, leading to this table:

USA: 6 points
Sweden: 4 points
Canada: 2 points
Finland: 0 points

That would mean two things:

1. Canada would need Sweden to lose to the USA on Monday to have any chance of advancing, and

2. The USA would have a spot in the championship locked up after two games, meaning they might not necessarily be worried about bringing their “A” game against Sweden on Monday.

Sure, Canada probably isn’t too worried about beating Finland on Monday given what the USA did on Thursday night, but but a loss to the USA tomorrow night means they no longer control their own destiny, and could only max out at 5 points. So, yeah. Tomorrow is kind of a must-win game for Canada, as if that contest was ever going to be anything else for both teams.

For example, here’s a pretty reasonable prediction of what could easily happen tomorrow: