Stars Likely to Face "General Chaos" after Mikko Rantanen Injury and Other Absences Cloud Return to NHL Campaign
The roster decisions could get tricky, too
Update: At 4:30pm today, the Stars placed Mikko Rantanen on Injured Reserve retroactive to February 20.
Full disclosure: I hadn’t realized a team could use retroactive IR assignment to backdate to a day during the roster freeze, which is my mistake.
By doing so, Dallas now opens up a roster spot without needing to put another player on waivers for the moment, and it also means Rantanen is eligible to be re-activated as soon as Saturday, 2/28 against Nashville—if he’s healthy by then, which we have no way of knowing. The retroactive assignment doesn’t necessarily tell us more about Rantanen’s status one way or the other, but it does give the team the maximum amount of flexibility in the short term.
After practice today, we got an update on the status of quite a few players. Information is a good thing, even when it’s not necessarily good news, but today’s revelations (such as they were) added a layer of complexity to the Stars’ lineup decisions ahead of Wednesday’s game against Seattle.
Glen Gulutzan praised the leadership of Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene in getting the rest of the team back into game shape over the course of four practices last week. He said today that he felt the group in Dallas was back to being ready to play a game after three days of practice, which was encouraging to see.
But with seven key players absent during that time, there were sure to be some hiccups when play resumed, and that’s indeed how it’s shaken out.
“I was talking with Joe [Calvillo, Senior Director of Communications] before I came in here,” Gulutzan said today, “And the last conversation is, it looks like we’re gonna be affected a little bit to start. We had lots of players playing [in the Olympics], and that’s the way it is.”
While none of the Olympians were back at Stars practice today, we did get some more information after their various timelines for return. We’ll get into all the implications in a moment, but let’s begin by running down the list of all the players whose availability for Wednesday (or beyond) could be in question, right now.
Mikko Rantanen is injured
Rantanen picked up a lower-body injury at the Olympics, as we’ve discussed. But today, Glen Gulutzan provided a bit more information, so I’ll give you his full quote here.
“I don’t have a full update,” Gulutzan began ominously. “But I would say to you that we are probably gonna miss [Rantanen] for a little bit here. I don’t know quite the…”
—here, Gulutzan trailed off for a moment before amending his sentence.
“He’s going to see Doc today. But I wouldn’t expect him, certainly, for the first game, and maybe in the first two.”
If I’m reading between the lines, I might be inclined to say that the Stars haven’t fully confirmed the extent of Rantanen’s injury, but that they know it’s at least something that will require a few days of healing at a bare minimum, and possibly more. That’s just a guess based on the comments above, though.
In a vacuum, being without Rantanen for a couple of games is not a big deal, especially given where the Stars are in the standings. Their strong playing leading up to the break left them just about even with Minnesota, and 13 points ahead of Utah with 25 games to play.
However, it sounds like there’s still at least a chance Rantanen’s injury could wind up being worse than just a two-game absence, depending on what his doctor visit today reveals.
For now, it sounds like Rantanen is all but certain to miss Wednesday’s game, and likely to miss Saturday’s. Beyond that, we’ll have to wait for more information, which could come as early as tomorrow.
Let’s touch on the other Finnish players right quick.
Roope Hintz is sick…
Gulutzan said that Roope Hintz is sick today (Monday).
“So we’ll have to see how that goes,” Gulutzan said of Hintz’s illness.
We don’t know anything beyond that, but obviously Hintz’s availability for Wednesday will depend on how quickly he recovers from his illness, since that’s how “being sick” works. (Just a note for all the non-humans out there.)
…but Esa Lindell and Miro Heiskanen will be available to play
Miro Heiskanen and Esa Lindell are expected to be available to play on Wednesday, though Gulutzan added that they’d try to avoid heavy usage right out of the gate.
At least, as much as that’s possible to do with those two.
“When they do dress, and they do play, they don’t want to play 19 minutes,” Gulutzan said of the top defense pairing. “They wanna play play. We’re not gonna run them maybe 28, 29 minutes like they were running [in the Olympics], but certainly they’re gonna get their share of ice time.”
Thomas Harley will play, too
I’d expect more or less regular usage for Thomas Harley as well, though Gulutzan did say he expects Harley might deal with a natural “dip” after coming off the emotional experience of playing in such a big game.
“Last year, we had Connor [McDavid], and he came back from the Four Nations,” Gulutzan said. “It’s a big, huge event, and then he flew in, practiced, and played. And you could tell that there’s a little emotional difference.”
Even accounting for such a natural dip, Harley’s play at the Olympics was very encouraging after his slow start to the season. So even if it takes a game or two for Harley to fully decompress, the Stars likely will be getting back the fully operational top-tier defensemen whom they recently signed to a long-term extension.
Casey DeSmith will start in goal on Wednesday
Casey DeSmith was also absent at practice today, but not to worry: his absence was for personal reasons that were planned ahead of time.
Gulutzan also confirmed today that they were always planning on giving Wednesday’s game to DeSmith, regardless of how much Oettinger played the Olympics. And given the helter-skelter nature of first games back after a long break, DeSmith may end up having his hands full.
Who DeSmith’s backup will be, however, is another question. Because…
Jake Oettinger Isn’t Back in Dallas Yet
Oettinger’s health is not in question, on account of he didn’t play a single minute of hockey at the Olympics despite clearly moving back up to second on the USA goaltending depth chart after Jeremy Swayman’s discouraging performance in the qualifying rounds.
Instead, it’s about availability. When asked about Oettinger’s status for Wednesday, Gulutzan said this:
“I would think we’ll be impacted by that too, a little bit. I haven’t got the full itinerary of what they’re doing. I know there’s things going on in Miami, and then over to the White House. So I wouldn’t expect him…he won’t be playing game one.”
I didn’t take this to mean Gulutzan knows for certain whether Oettinger will or won’t be going to the White House and/or the State of the Union speech, however. Because there’s, uh, a lot going on with that.
You may have heard about it already, but that proposed visit has become a far bigger story than one affecting just NHL game availability, after the President of the United States joked to the men’s team about being obligated to also invite the women’s gold medal-winning team, lest he be “impeached” for not doing so. This all happened in the midst of a celebration where the Director of the FBI was invited into the locker room by Bill Guerin, after which said director began drinking and spraying beers in the locker room with the players while wearing one of the gold medals around his neck.
The USA women’s hockey team has since politely declined the invitation, citing previously scheduled academic and professional obligations. The men’s team has not yet confirmed their plans, and Team USA captain Auston Matthews demurred when asked about the team’s schedule.
But [Matthews] stopped short of saying that the whole team would make the trip to D.C.
“I think there’s a lot of moving parts as far as our travels back home. We’ll kind of see what happens, but obviously it’s an honor to wear this jersey and to represent the U.S.,” Matthews said.
-John L. Micek, Yahoo News, 2/23/26
Anyway, it sounds like the Stars were never planning for Oettinger to start Wednesday’s game even before the team won gold.
“We kind of pre-planned that as we went,” Gulutzan went on to say. “That Case [DeSmith] would play game one coming out of the break. So that was already in order.”
Oettinger may still dress for the game, however.
“Jake won’t be [playing] in that game, I can tell you that now,” Gulutzan said. “I don’t know if he’s backing up or not, depending on that schedule.”
Radek Faksa, TBD
Gulutzan said last week that as far as he knew, Faksa would “99% be a game player for us” upon returning to Dallas.
However, Gulutzan said today that Faksa was “getting evaluated” on Monday, and he wasn’t ready to commit to his being in Wednesday’s game just yet.
“We’ll see if he’s available for us Wednesday, and then yeah, we’ll go from there.”
Faksa was reported to have suffered an upper-body injury in Czechia’s third game of the tournament, after which he missed their final two games.
Like Rantanen, I expect we’ll hear more about Faksa’s status after practice on Tuesday. But as of now, he hasn’t been ruled out for Wednesday, which is relatively encouraging—and relative encouragement sounds like the only kind we’re likely to get, at least in the immediate future.
Those are the Olympians and their respective statuses. Now, let’s get into how all of these things affect the Stars’ roster plans going forward.
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