The Players Who Are Making the Dallas Stars' Playoff Lineup Conversation a Surprisingly Difficult One

Mavrik Bourque locked up his starting spot ages ago. Who else has joined him?

At the beginning of the season, the Dallas Stars’ presumptive playoff lineup was mostly clear, with a couple of key spots to be bolstered in trade.

Sure, Nils Lundkvist and Mavrik Bourque came into the year with their respective somethings to prove, and the Stars were always likely to bring in some help on the right side of the defense as well as on the wing. The trade deadline was the most obvious way to address those two spots, and they did just that.

To Lundkvist and Bourque’s credit, they seized the opportunities they were given, and any reasonable lineup projection for the playoffs should now feature each of them in a starting role. That’s a big win for both players, and they should be proud of what they’ve done so far.

Other questions have arisen, however. Injuries have continued to bombard Dallas’s forward group, and Miro Heiskanen’s addition to the “hopeful” group of returnees only exacerbated concerns about the Stars’ depth for what will surely be a difficult first round of the playoffs.

As we continue to wait for news about just who may or may not be healthy enough to play this weekend, some other players have clouded the picture of what that Game 1 lineup might look like, and in a good way.

So, starting back on opening night, let’s look at how a couple of interesting names have made Glen Gulutzan’s decisions for this weekend even more difficult than they were already going to be.

With Jamie Benn and Oskar Bäck on IR to start the season, the Stars began the year with this lineup (after briefly recalling Harrison Scott and Trey Taylor purely for cap purposes in the days prior):