Tuesday Dallas Stars Roundup: Tyler Seguin "Really Close," a Mysterious Game-Time Decision, Oskar Bäck's Narrow Escape, and Fourth-Line Power Play Production

Let's catch up on some Stars news and, you know, Thoughts

It was good to be back at American Airlines Center (slowly) walking around today.

Last week, Jamie Benn missed two games with what Pete DeBoer called “a little lower-body thing” for “maintenance.” No other details have been given officially about Benn’s absence, and with the playoffs nigh and Benn not divulging any details, speculation is the best we have right now. But Benn looked healthy on Sunday in his return, when he played nearly 16 minutes in the Stars’ overtime loss in Minnesota.

Those two games last week were also a rarity for the Stars in another sense: they were the first time since the start of the 2020-21 season that both Benn and Tyler Seguin had been out of the Stars’ lineup at the same time. That was the year Benn missed four games after suffering a lower-body injury in the season opener, and the same year in which Seguin was on the shelf for all but a final three games of the season recovering from a grueling offseason hip surgery (a different hip than he’s rehabbing this time, remember).

From my cursory research, that means that, since Seguin arrived in 2013-14, the Stars have only played six total games across twelve seasons without at least one of Benn or Seguin being in the lineup.

Speaking of Seguin, he was once again out there at morning skate, as we’ve come to expect lately. Seguin was the second player on the ice this morning (Mason Marchment beat him this time), and he was also one of the last ones, as he and Brendan Smith were out late continuing to work together even after Jake Oettiner (who is backing up Casey DeSmith tonight) left the ice.

“He’s getting really close,”Pete DeBoer said of Seguin Tuesday morning. “He’s not full contact yet, but the fact he’s out with us means he’s clear if someone bumped into him or falls into him, he’s clear for that. So that’s a good sign. We haven’t put him in a corner and have people bump and physically engage him yet. That’s the next step. But he’s really close, and the good thing is, he feels good. He’s got good pop in his legs, which is the important part.”

Interestingly enough, DeBoer also said that the Stars have a game-time decision among the forwards, though of course we don’t know what that is, and yes, I hear you screaming “Does that mean Seguin might play tonight?!?!?” and, well…