Wednesday Dallas Stars Roundup: Lian Bichsel Activated, Arttu Hyry Recalled, Oettinger Talks Skipping the White House, and Harley talks Playing against Radek Faksa & with Connor McDavid

A real live NHL game will happen tonight

Now that all of the Stars’ Olympians have finally returned to Dallas, their lineup for tonight has finally taken shape. And the holes are pretty noticeable.

After putting Radek Faksa and Mikko Rantanen on Injured Reserve, the Stars were already down to the bare minimum of 12 healthy forwards. So with Roope Hintz still dealing with an illness today, the Stars were going to be one short. Thus they ended up recalling Arttu Hyry for tonight’s game.

Gulutzan said that he considered going with an 11 forwards/7 defensemen lineup, but without a player like Rantanen available to double shift, they opted to go with four full forward lines.

“The D all hate seven anyway,” Gulutzan said with a smile. “So we just thought twelve and six is best today.”

If there’s good news in all of this, it’s that Faksa’s absence shouldn’t be a long one, at least.

“I’d say [Faksa] is probable for Saturday,” Gulutzan said. “He just needed a couple more skates to see how he’s feeling. I haven’t talked to him since I got off the ice. Yesterday he was close to playing, but we’re in a situation here where we’re not gonna rush anybody coming back. We want to make sure it’s the right time when they come back.”

To put four full forward lines together, Goaltender Rémi Poirier has been loaned back to AHL Texas, while Hyry has been recalled to serve as the team’s fourth-line center for tonight’s game against the Seattle Kraken.

Hyry dealt with injuries earlier this season in the AHL, and he’s only recently begun playing again for Texas. Gulutzan said today that had Hyry been healthy, they would have found a way to recall him to Dallas sooner.

“We need a center,” Gulutzan said. “He’s a good penalty killer down there. I talked to Petey [Texas head coach Toby Petersen], he’s gotten his legs up and running there. He’s a big, heavy guy. He’s a right shot that’s 58% or something on faceoffs down there. He’s got all the NHL attributes.”

Based on line rushes at morning skate and Gulutzan’s comments afterward, I’d expect to see this lineup for Dallas tonight, with Kyle Capobianco and Ilya Lyubushkin serving as healthy scratches on the blue line:

Robertson-Johnston-Bourque
Steel-Duchene-Benn
Erne-Hryckowian-Blackwell
Bäck-Hyry-Bastian

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Petrovic

DeSmith

Colin Blackwell missed practice yesterday, but he was back practicing again today, so he will play tonight.

Jake Oettinger talks gold medal, White House, and women’s hockey

Jake Oettinger returned to Dallas yesterday, and he will back up Casey DeSmith tonight.

Oettinger had a lengthy media scrum today, which you can watch with full context here. But a couple of quotes stuck out to me, so I’ll transcribe those below as well.

On the experience in the Olympic Village:

Just to get to watch it up close and see what those athletes put into, you know, we get to play every day and play for the cup every year, and they work for four years for their one moment. So just to talk to them and get to know them, it was cool. Like, you talk to someone in the cafeteria, and then the next day, you’re watching them compete for a gold medal, it makes you root for them even harder.

On why he skipped the White House visit yesterday:

First of all, getting invited to go to the White House is a tremendous honor. I think, you know, for me, I have been basically living in Italy for a month. I have a huge stretch run. I wasn’t playing much. I wanted to come back and get my game ready to go. I also have a three-month-old baby at home who’d been traveling the world.

So that was kind of what went into that. But I think those guys had a great time there. That was why I didn’t go.

On the President’s comments about the USA Women’s Hockey team:

You know, my opinion on that is, there’s no one that supports women’s hockey more than me. I know a lot of those girls personally, and I think if you would have been at the bar watching the game with me where I was, watching women’s hockey, there was no one as excited as me when they won the gold medal. So they’re incredible, and they deserve all the credit in the world. They’re dominant. And I was just so happy for those girls. And to get to know a few of them personally made it that much cooler. So, yeah, it was pretty cool, and the fact that the men and the women both have the gold medal right now is pretty cool.

On whether he knew who FBI Director Kash Patel was when he joined Team USA in the locker room:

Yeah, I think everyone knows who he is. You’re just in the locker room partying, and you look around, and there’s a bunch of random people that are in there. Nothing too crazy.

On sharing the moment with his three-month-old son, and how the baby handled the trip:

I have some cool [photos] with him already, yeah. His little hand is, like, not even half of [the gold medal], so it looks pretty cool with it when it’s in his hand.

He did really, really well. He was the MVP of the trip, other than my wife. He was chilling, slept when he should be sleeping, and watched a lot of hockey and other events. He can’t eat ice cream yet, but once he can, he deserves some ice cream.

On whether it’s too soon to talk about the gold medal game with Thomas Harley: