Tuesday Dallas Stars Roundup: Jason Robertson's Offhand Return, Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin Reunited, and a Note on Lian Bichsel

Game 1 in Winnipeg looks even more interesting

Another quick note before we get started: Check out my appearance on Gavin Spittle’s always-fun Spits and Suds podcast Tuesday afternoon, if you haven’t already. We spent a bit talking about today’s lines at practice, the Colorado series, and what happened in the press box when Mikko Rantanen went full psycho mode last Saturday night. Give it a listen.

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At practice today, I snapped the above (grainy) photo of Matt Duchene playing with Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin.

You might have forgotten, but Duchene actually played with Benn quite a bit this year after Mason Marchment took a puck to the face and had to have it put back together. And in a vacuum, it’s been a good duo, as the Benn-Duchene pair has been more possession-positive than Marchment-Duchene have been. In fact, Benn’s had his best possession numbers with Duchene of any other forward he’s played with this year, so perhaps there’s some latent chemistry there.

As for Seguin, the once-inseparable duo of Benn and Seguin hasn’t been together since a brief cameo early in the 2022-23 season, during which Benn was otherwise with Wyatt Johnston in the latter’s rookie campaign.

Last year, Benn also played eight or nine games with Joe Pavelski and Sam Steel. But for now, it looks like the three thirty-somethings will try to make that second line a consistent threat against Winnipeg. (Please submit your nickname suggestions for this line in the suggestion box next to the cafeteria. I have already submitted “The DadBod Squad.”)

That trio was one of three new-look forward lines for Dallas. Pete DeBoer said after practice that second, third, and fourth lines were “spotty” in their performance in the Colorado series, hence the changes we saw today at practice, which included someone interesting:

Granlund-Hintz-Rantanen
Benn-Duchene-Seguin
Marchment-Johnston-Robertson
Bäck-Steel-Dadonov
Smith-Bourque-Blackwell¹

By the way, the defense pairings were the same as we saw against Colorado, as Miro Heiskanen participated in drills with Matt Dumba rather than factoring into what we presume to be the starting defense for Game 1.

Okay, let’s talk about whether Jason Robertson is likely to actually return tomorrow, why Marchment might have been moved off Duchene’s wing, and what Pete DeBoer might be thinking with each of these lines.