Roope Hintz Out for Playoff Games 1 and 2, Miro Heiskanen's Status Still Unclear, and Nils Lundkvist's Good News

The news has not gotten better, unless you're Nils Lundkvist

Stars.NHL.com

This is a very short post to provide three important pieces of Stars news today.

First, congratulations to Nils Lundkvist, who announced that he and his wife just had their first child. Lundkvist’s absence from the team was initially termed “illness,” but like Jamie Benn’s “lower-body injury” last year, it turns out the team was simply providing some privacy for the player and his family during an exciting (and surely nerve-wracking) time.

Lundkvist is back with the team, and he’s expected to play Wednesday in Buffalo. That’s where the good news ends, though.

Second, Glen Gulutzan informed the media today in Buffalo that Roope Hintz is not expected to play in either of the Stars’ home games against Minnesota to start the series. And it doesn’t sound particularly optimistic beyond that, either.

“Certainly Roope won’t be in in Game 1 or 2,” Gulutzan said. “We don’t know when he could come back or if he could come back. We’ll see.”

As you know, Hintz was injured on March 6 in Dallas after Nathan MacKinnon did whatever this is in trying to free himself from Hintz along the boards:

As of March 29, Hintz had begun skating on his own, just a day or two before Faksa began to do so. But for reasons unknown, Hintz’s recovery timeline is going to be a good bit longer than Faksa’s—if it happens this spring at all, which Gulutzan didn’t commit to.

For my money, Hintz’s left skate getting caught along the boards is something that could have been a factor in this injury, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go without knowing anything else.

In any case, the news today is a very big blow to Dallas, to put it mildly.

In terms of other reinforcements, Sam Steel is still a possibility to return to the lineup on Wednesday, but he’s played more wing than center this year. Instead, the Stars could end up asking a rookie like Justin Hryckowian or Arttu Hyry to keep playing third-line center into the postseason this year, which both have done at times lately as a result of Hintz’s absence. Oskar Bäck has done so as well, but like Steel, Bäck has primarily played on the wing wing this year. And as we discussed earlier today, he’s been quite good in that role.

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However Dallas ends up backfilling for the center position, the hard truth is that they simply don’t have a player on the roster who can replace everything Hintz does. His prolonged absence is a very tough piece of news, and no mistake.

Third and finally, Gulutzan declined to give more specific updates on Miro Heiskanen, which you can take hopefully or otherwise.

“Miro, we’re not sure yet,” Gulutzan said. “I haven’t got an update today, but we’ll probably know more in the next two days.”

The lack of clarity there is its own sort of mildly good news, if you want to take it that way. The bright side of all this is that Heiskanen was not ruled out for Game 1 like Hintz, which you’d think Gulutzan would have done if Heiskanen’s ability to play were also in serious doubt. But calling an ongoing injury recovery by a top-five defenseman in the NHL a “bright side” is stretching the term to its breaking point.

Interesting enough, Matt Duchene said more or less the same thing about Heiskanen in his weekly radio hit with the Ticket today, too:

“Hopefully he’s back for Game 1. I’m not sure what his status is,” Duchene said of Heiskanen.

“And then obviously Roope and some other guys we’re waiting on as well. I’m not sure when they’ll be back,” Duchene said, “But I mean, it’s a next-man-up type of thing. Just go out, do what you can, do your job.”

When asked about the officiating, Duchene alluded to some displeasure with the officiating in that Minnesota game, though he wisely declined to go into detail. Duchene mentioned a “common denominator” between the Minnesota win and the following game against the Rangers, and coincidentally or not, both the Minnesota and New York games had veteran referee Eric Furlatt on the crew.

But officiating is one of many things out of the team’s control. For now, the Stars will have to keep hoping for a quick recovery for Heiskanen, and a similar outcome to this year’s first round as last year’s, when they were also missing a key forward and the same top defenseman.