What Options Do the Stars Have in Light of Adam Erne's Injury?

Playing left wing in Dallas is a dangerous gig this season

It is a cold, slushy day in Montreal, where the Stars held a pretty heavy optional practice ahead of Thursday night’s game against the Canadiens.

Jason Robertson was the only top-six forward who skated today, and Ilya Lyubushkin was the only top-four defenseman to hit the ice. All told, there were two goalies and seven skaters on the ice at practice at the Bell Centre/Centre Bell.

Two skaters who were out there pretty early were Justin Hryckowian and Mavrik Bourque, who are playing in a building that’s pretty special for the two Québécois Stars playrers. Both will have a lot of family in attendance, with Bourque saying today that he believes around 100 of his family and friends will be on hand. And you can be Hryckowian’s number of in-person guests won’t be too far behind that, since it’s the latter’s first career NHL game in his home province.

As for the rest of the Dallas lineup, not all the players to take the option and stay off the ice today were healthy, as we found out afterwards. Per Glen Gulutzan, Adam Erne suffered a lower-body injury yesterday in Ottawa, and he’ll be heading back to Dallas tomorrow to get re-evaluated.

“We’re talking weeks here, a few weeks, with a lower-body injury,” Gulutzan said of Erne on Wednesday. “He’ll be going home tomorrow and getting re-evaluated, but I think it’ll be a few weeks.”

As far as options, Gulutzan also revealed something new today: Defenseman Thomas Harley is playing through some kind of minor injury. And that might dictate whether the Stars decide bring Nate Bastian back into the lineup to keep a 12F/6D lineup, or whether they go with Kyle Capobianco to ice 11 forwards and 7 defensemen.

“We haven’t made our final decision, but that’s what we have,” Gulutzan said. “We have 11 and 7 options with Capo (Capobianco) coming in, depending on Harls (Harley) and other guys who are nicked up a little bit. And we have the 12 and 6 option. So we’ll look at how everybody came out today.”

Thomas Harley’s play to start the season hasn’t been up to his usual standards (including last year’s playoffs and Four Nations tournament), so it’s not entirely surprising to learn he’s been managing some kind of “nick.” But what exactly that issue is hasn’t been revealed yet, so it’s tough to analyze exactly how it might be affecting his play.

With Erne out for a while, and with Matt Duchene still not traveling with the team as he manages his upper-body injury, the Stars have a full roster of 23 players, but with only one extra player who is actually healthy: Kyle Capobianco (or Nate Bastian, if the Stars go with an 11F/7D lineup).

And if you’re wondering about Jamie Benn, the Stars’ captain practiced with the other players on the ice in Montreal today, and he looked pretty good to my untrained eye. But for hard facts, we can do better than that: Gulutzan was asked if the captain is still a few weeks away, and he said Benn was closer than that.

“I’m hoping not a few weeks,” Gulutzan said, “But it’s gonna be a little bit here. But he’s starting to look really good on the ice. I’m sure you guys all watched [practice today]. So we’re getting excited about that, to have our captain back. We just want to make sure it’s the right time for him.”

So, there you go: Benn isn’t quite ready yet. And if you’re thinking about the Stars’ options for calling up another player, well, that’s possible—but it’s also complicated.

For starters, the Stars would have to put another player on Injured Reserve (IR) to clear one of their 23 roster spots. After that, the Stars would then have to fit the new player’s salary cap number into their $815,990 of currently available¹ cap space—which limits their option for AHL callups: The only forwards who could fit under that $815K number are Cameron Hughes, Kole Lind, and Antonio Stranges.

However, the Stars could also put another player on LTIR if they wanted to open up more cap space. The only catch there is that players on LTIR have to be out for at least 10 games and 24 calendar days before they can return.

But that’s doable, as the Stars could retroactively put Matt Duchene on LTIR, since he’s already met the minimum LTIR stay after having last played in Game 5 of the Stars’ season on October 18, which was 25 days ago. Duchene could then come back off LTIR as soon as he’s healthy again—whenever that might be.

Dallas wouldn’t make an LTIR move until they have to. And it’s also worth pointing out that they don’t exactly have an ideal left-wing replacement waiting in the AHL right now, even if they had all the cap space in the world.

The right-hand shooting Arttu Hyry (who probably would have been at the top of the list of call-ups) is also out of the Texas lineup as he recovers from an injury, so that means the best in-house options Dallas has at wing are players like the aforementioned Cameron Hughes (2 games of NHL experience), Kole Lind (31 games of NHL experience, only one of which came in the last four seasons), or players with no NHL experience at all, like Samu Tuomaala or Antonio Stranges.

But it’s also fair to wonder just how helpful a new body would be for a Dallas team that’s still struggling to play a full 60-minute game more often than not. Even if that inconsistency hasn’t necessarily burned them as much as you’d expect, given the Stars’ position at 4th in the entire NHL as of Wednesday afternoon, you still don’t want to create a revolving door of players if you have enough healthy bodies to keep getting on with.

(It’s worth taking a step back, by the way, and looking around the league at all the teams who wish they were in the Stars’ shoes. Banking points is the name of the game in the early season, and the Stars have done that.)

If the Stars do end up calling up a player, it’s worth keep expectaions in check, as it’s extremely rare for AHL players to come up and do what Alex Petrovic did in recent years, stepping into regular NHL duty without missing a beat. While there are definite similarities between how players are asked to play under Toby Petersen in the AHL and under Gulutzan in the NHL, but Justin Hryckowian is a prime example of how even players with NHL experience who have performed excellently in the AHL can still need some time to develop consistency and rhythm in their game.

Of course, depending on how banged-up the Stars really are, they might not have a choice. If Harley and others are playing through issues already, the Stars might simply need to bring in whatever help they can and hope for the best, just to make sure nobody gets overworked.

But for Thursday night in Montreal, at least, it appears Dallas will be using the bodies they have—whatever mixture that ends up being.

1. If you want to get technical, the Stars are actually exceeding the salary cap, with Jamie Benn and Nils Lundkvist both on Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) in order to allow them to do that. But I trust that we all know what we mean by “cap space,” so I’m not going to cut it too fine today.