Monday Dallas Stars Roundup: Tyler Myers on a 3:26 Overtime Shift, Wyatt Johnston on Pranking Lian Bichsel, and Pondering a Replacement for Nils Lundkvist in Game 5

The Dallas Stars will need another defenseman on Tuesday

After splitting the first four games of the series, Dallas still has home-ice advantage over the Minnesota Wild. Having the last change might prove to be especially crucial in Game 5, as the Stars will be without Nils Lundkvist, who suffered a “deep facial laceration” in Game 4.

That laceration came on a violent play that somehow didn’t put Lundkvist in the hospital. A sprawling Michael McCarron’s right skate caught Lundkvist’s cheek with force after McCarron was tripped, and although Lundkvist was able to get up and leave the ice under his own power, Glen Gulutzan confirmed after practice today that Lundkvist would not be available for Game 5 on Tuesday.

“Nils, you won’t see Nils in the game tomorrow,” Gulutzan said. “We should see him before the series is over, but you won’t see him tomorrow.”

That was somewhat surprisingly good news, given the nature of the injury to Lundkvist. Considering how hard the skate blade hit his cheek, you wondered at the time whether Lundkvist would need not only stitches, but perhaps some cheek bone repair. (Viewer discretion advised.)

But no, Gulutzan said, Lundkvist didn’t even need to go to the hospital. Instead, he’s likely to factor into Game 6 or 7 (if necessary) later this week. All things considered, that’s very encouraging news for Lundkvist.

Another defenseman absent from practice today was Miro Heiskanen, though Gulutzan confirmed that it was just a maintenance day for Heiskanen. The Stars’ top defenseman will indeed be in the lineup Tuesday night, while Roope Hintz remains on the shelf.

Gulutzan said Hintz is skating on his own, but the center did not practice with the team today, which indicates he may still be a little ways from a potential return.

“Roope’s continued skating,” Gulutzan said without elaboration.

As for a potential Game 5 lineup, practice didn’t offer any obvious clues, at least up at forward. Gulutzan said a decision about who replaces Lundkvist tomorrow will be made by the coaching staff Monday night, and we’ll touch on what might go into that decision in a moment.

Up front, the four forward lines that showed up during drills today were the same as in Game 4, while Michael Bunting skated on a fifth line with Nathan Bastian and Adam Erne. Gulutzan praised Bunting’s attitude after four straight playoff scratches, also acknowledging how tough it is for players who aren’t playing right now.

“He’s been really good as far as handling the frustration,” Gulutzan said of Bunting. “We’ve got four or five guys sitting out that all really, really want to play, and guys that have played in 50, 60 games for us that really want to play. That’s the hard part about the playoffs. Everybody wants to get in.”

On defense, at least one of Ilya Lyubushkin, Alex Petrovic, or Kyle Capobianco will do just that tomorrow. But at forward, it sounded a bit less likely that any new faces draw in tomorrow.

“All you can do is be ready when your number is called,” Gulutzan continued. “I mean, we were on the verge…probably eight minutes away from maybe winning three games in a row, which is hard to do in the playoffs. We’ve kind of gotten better since game one. So when we make lineup decisions like we are tonight, guys have to be ready. But [Bunting’s] been very good.”

Without Heiskanen or Lundkvist at practice today, the defense pairings rotated quite a bit. Here’s just a sampling of the many pairings that we saw: