Two Quick Questions to Ponder Before Lian Bichsel’s Debut with the Dallas Stars

As everyone knows by now, the Stars announced this morning that Lian Bichsel was recalled to the NHL. And after Bichsel joined the team for morning skate today, Pete DeBoer confirmed that the large, Swiss defenseman will indeed make his NHL debut tonight for Dallas against the Nashville Predators.

Bichsel found out about the callup yesterday, when Texas Head Coach Neil Graham called him into his office to tell him the good news. Bichsel then had a phone call with Texas GM (and Dallas Stars Assistant General Manager) Scott White before the 20-year-old made the drive up to Dallas. He had a smile on his face nearly all morning, as you would expect from a player finally realizing the dream he’s worked toward for years.

I’ll have much more on Bichsel tomorrow at D Magazine, but as we gear up for his first game in the NHL, here are a couple of questions rattling around in my mind before tonight’s game.

Question #1: How Long Will Bichsel Stay?

The most important part of this question is easily answered: Bichsel won’t stay if he doesn’t look ready for the NHL grind. As the Stars showed with Thomas Harley, even being able to hang in the NHL isn’t the goal; they want their young defensemen to thrive. If Bichsel doesn’t look ready to help the team win, they’ll send him back for more seasoning.

The second part of that question has to do with the alternatives. If this just ends up being a chance to see how Bichsel’s game holds up in the NHL, then maybe he’s going back for a bit regardless. But right now, DeBoer seems to pretty clearly not be in love with options like Matt Dumba or Brendan Smith. And if Dumba’s current injury ends up being significant after further testing gets done today, the Stars will need a viable solution on the blue line for the other 53 games after tonight. If Bichsel looks like one of their six best defensemen, I have little doubt they’ll use him as such. But that has ramifications for the rest of the roster, as we’ll discuss in time.

Question #2: How Is Bichsel Different from Jamie Oleksiak?

In many ways, is the first part of the answer. Bichsel is 6’6″, although the Stars’ roster now has him listed at 6’7″, which honestly he could be, after standing next to him this morning. The only other Dallas Stars player I can remember in that neighborhood is Jamie Oleksiak, now of the Seattle Kraken, who was another first-round pick by Dallas way back when.

Regardless of official lists, though, an informal poll I took today of some Stars folks who were around for Oleksiak’s time with Dallas resulted in a tentative agreement that Oleksiak might be just a hair taller than Bichsel, but it’s close.

When Oleksiak came up during the shortened lockout season, it was a time of defensive dearth for the Stars. Oleksiak was promised to be everything from the next power play quarterback to a fast-skating version of Derian Hatcher. The end result was a lot of up-and-down, with Oleksiak occasionally failing to beat out 7th-round pick Jyrki Jokipakka for the Stars’ third pairing. The pressure was intense on Dallas to find someone besides Alex Goligoski to play serious minutes atop the blue line, and Oleksiak got all of that pressure heaped on his shoulders far earlier than was fair to him.

Fair or not, the criticisms started coming swiftly: He was big, but not mean enough. He was a good skater, but not offensive enough. He had a big reach, but he didn’t shoot enough. And so on. Not altogether inaccurate, but it was a really difficult situation for any highly-touted prospect to encounter, and it took him a while to navigate it, resulting in the eventual trade/loan to Pittsburgh.

Bichsel is, most certainly, going to be mean enough, Bichsel knows he can’t run around the ice just trying to lay hits, of course, but he’s been very physical in Cedar Park, as David mentioned on Twitter today. He also scored a buzzer-beating goal in the preseason against Colorado. He knows what tools he has, but he’s also smart about how he deploys them.

And after watching Bichsel in the preseason and on screen in Texas this year, I think the Stars (and Bichsel himself) know exactly what they’re getting. He’s big, and he’s mean. He can skate, but he’s also smart about where he goes, for a 20-year-old defender. He’s not stealing anyone’s power play time, and he doesn’t have to.

DeBoer said that Bichsel probably won’t play on special teams right away, as they want to “ease him in.” Phrases like that are a pretty stark contrast from Oleksiak’s debut. The Stars were desperate and eager for what Oleksiak could have been; they’re quietly thrilled about what Bichsel already is.

We’ll see how that comes together when he debuts tonight, but this seems to be a player who has all the confidence in the world when it comes to his own abilities and choices (as Sean wrote excellently a few months back). The Stars thought he was ready to help in an emergency in the playoffs, but that didn’t end up being necessary. Now, they have the luxury of letting him wade into the league rather than diving in headfirst. But either way, I’d expect him to make a big splash.