Thursday morning stuff

The Gameday preview for tonight's game should be up early this afternoon. In the meantime, here's some news and notes from around the interweb.

The Sean Avery saga is far from over. He will be finishing his behavior classes this week and will be eligible to return to playing as early as next week. The good news is that whatever happens, he won't be playing for the Stars.

Per Les Jackson:

"The problem that will arise is where does he go," Jackson said. "He’s not coming back to Dallas, we know that for sure. We’ll hopefully find him another place and he can convince a team that he’s going to come back and play, and play to the level that he is capable, respect the game and the respect the people around him."

The Hockey News has a great article up about James Neal and Brad Richard's role in the Stars' resurgence.

The DMN takes a look at Marty Turco and how this upcoming stretch of games will be his toughest yet.

Finally, Mike Heika has his weekly newsletter up. Some great stuff in there as always, you should definitely sign up for it via email if you haven't already. Here's a snippet:

Q: It looks like Marty Turco is coming around, which is good to see. But there has to be concern about him playing so many games without a rest.

You mentioned previously that the Stars might want to pick up a veteran netminder prior to the trade deadline, which is all fine and good. But what does that say about Tobias Stephan? If coach Dave Tippett isn't confident enough in the kid to start him, why is he on the roster? What are the plans for him?

Mike in WNY

HEIKA: Yeah, this has been a problem all year, and it will be very closely watched this weekend when the team plays three games in less than four days with a road trip mixed in.

Management and scouts believe in Stephan, but because of the slow start, Tippett has been hesitant to play him.

It will be very interesting to see how Tippett responds down the stretch. I think if the Stars get a little breathing room in the standings, then the coach will give Turco some time off. We'll see how that works out.

He also mentions how the trade rumour about Brad Richards is pure baloney.