Tyler Seguin Will Play Tonight in Nashville for the Dallas Stars

Here's why it makes sense

Since his hip surgery in early December, the Stars have had to find a way to get along without their second-longest tenured player: Tyler Seguin.

That may, at last, no longer be the case, as the Stars prepare to face the Nashville Predators Wednesday night for their final game of the regular season.

Here’s this just now from PuckPedia, citing the NHL media site:

Additionally, on the NHL Media site, I can confirm that Alex Petrovic and Lian Bichsel are no longer listed on the roster.

That will all change in another day, of course. Bichsel will be back. But this is just a move to clear space to activate Seguin, and as such, it is pretty clear confirmation that the Stars expect to have number 91 back in the lineup tonight.

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Before this all broke, I began to write the below reasoning for my educated guess that Seguin would be activated. Now that he has been, you can treat this as a relic of my reasoning. But I think it still holds up, so here you go:

We know that Tyler Seguin is in the plans for Game 1 of the playoffs, unlike Miro Heiskanen, whose timeline is a bit murkier. But for a few games now, Seguin has been looking good, skating and traveling and practicing with the team, and often being the last player on the ice at the end of a practice or morning skate—including in Seattle, when Pete DeBoer put Seguin through a pretty rigorous skating drill that elicited some laughter afterwards.

But finally, tonight, I think Seguin will get into a game.

One caveat here: DeBoer said Wednesday morning that some players are still dealing with the flu (like Mason Marchment was), so that could throw a spanner in the works of everything that has to happen in order to activate Seguin for Game 82. But let’s talk about that, and everything else in a more orderly fashion .

Okay, here’s what I’m thinking:

1. Pete DeBoer said as recently as before the Detroit game on Monday that he wants to get Seguin into a game. So despite some pretty valid arguments for why the Stars might be better off not doing so, the coach has clearly said he wants to see Seguin play before the playoffs begin. Coaches tend to find a way to get what they want, if it’s possible.
   
   Here’s what DeBoer said Wednesday morning: “It’d be nice, I think,” said DeBoer of getting Seguin into a game. “But it is only one game, too. But I think it’s always nice to get those game-like reps and that feels, if we can get him in.”

2. The Stars can activate Seguin without moving too much around. All they would need to do is re-assign Lian Bichsel and Alex Petrovic to the AHL for one day in order to clear enough cap space, and Seguin could be activated. The Texas Stars don’t play until Friday, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to just have those two players fly back and meet the team in Dallas (if they keep Petrovic up, that is).
   In fact, DeBoer referred to possible roster moves this morning:
   
   “We’ve got still a little bit of flu going through some guys. We’ve got some balls up in the air and some roster things we gotta deal with, but we’ll know more tonight.”

3. Playing Seguin would be a good way to hit the Refresh key for this team on a mental level, given the six games they’ve now gone without a win. As much as the team has openly said they’re not overly concerned about results of the last couple games in particular, losing still stinks, especially when it’s followed call-outs from their coach after two games preceding said losing streak.
   
   Having Seguin re-enter the lineup would not only be a boost to the guys in the room for camaraderie’s sake; it would also be a signal that the team is finally entering a different portion of this season for good. The Pre-Seguin and Post-Seguin eras can be very easily separated, I think. Anyone with the charisma and earned respect of Tyler Seguin tends to change a room he walks into for the better.

4. Seguin has looked good when he’s been skating and practicing. This isn’t a Heiskanen situation where he would be risking further injury by coming back early, I think. Seguin has been practicing and working out for far more than the 10-12 minutes of ice time he’d be likely to get in a tune-up game, so I think, as DeBoer said, it would be nice for Seguin to have a bit more certainty about his game-readiness before testing it against a fast team like Colorado when the stakes are as high as they get.
   
   The Stars have the ability to activate Seguin, and the coach wants him to play, and Seguin is pretty clearly ready to at least give it a trial run. So given all of those factors, I think it would be a pretty easy way to give the team a little extra boost at the end of a frustrating string of games before they head into a nerve-wracking matchup against Colorado on Saturday. (Which you can win tickets to by donating to a charity of your choice, by the way!)

   Stars Thoughts Is Giving Away Two Playoff Tickets to Game 1

So, yeah. That’s what led me to believe the will and the ability to play Seguin tonight were both there. And now that the transaction to activate Seguin has been made, we don’t have to speculate anymore.

Welcome back, Tyler Seguin.