Thursday Dallas Stars Roundup: Matt Duchene's Patience, Evander Kane and Jamie Benn's Long History, Adam Foote's Hospitality, and Roope Hintz's Generosity

We have some more Reporting for you today

Tyler Seguin and Nils Lundkvist warm up before Warm-Ups on Thursday morning in Dallas.

Matt Duchene will not play tonight after taking a big hit from Jake Middleton on Tuesday against Minnesota. Though according to Glen Gulutzan, he shouldn’t be out too much longer.

“Dutchy was nearly in,” Gulutzan said of Duchene, “But it’s wise, medically, to go here for a little bit [without him]. Adam Erne will factor in, and the D will stay the same.”

That means Ilya Lyubushkin will sit for the second game in a row, while Alex Petrovic will skate on a pairing with Lian Bichsel once again. And indeed, that’s what we saw at morning skate, with Harley-Lundkvist and Lindell-Heiskanen continuing their partnerships into the fourth game of the season.

For the first half of morning skate, the forward lines also looked the same as they did against Minnesota, with Duchene centering Hryckowian and Seguin. But as the power play units began working, Duchene skated over and began talking with Gulutzan, while Nils Lundkvist joined Thomas Harley and began working with the second unit along with Bourque, Steel, and Seguin.

As for how the forward lines will shake out now that Duchene won’t be in, Gulutzan did say on Wednesday that if Duchene couldn’t play, Faksa would probably move up to play third-line center. I’d also expect Johnston to pick up where he left off in the third period on Tuesday, when he was centering Robertson and Seguin on the second line.

So that might mean we see something like this to start the game tonight, but these combinations are only conjecture until we see warm-up line rushes. And of course, we’ll likely see other combinations throughout the game, too.

Steel-Hintz-Rantanen
Robertson-Johnston-Seguin
Blackwell-Faksa-Bourque
Erne-Hryckowian-Bastian

---

In talking with Duchene after morning skate, he said his goal is to return feeling as good as he felt in the first two periods of the game against Minnesota. And with it being just the fourth game of the season, there’s no sense rushing a return—particularly for a team accustomed to playing a fair amount of games after the regular season, too.