Among the slew of college prospects that jumped to the Dallas Stars minor league system late this season, Alex Chiasson might be one of the most intriguing.

The Quebec native who played three years at Boston University has a huge frame, listed at 6-foot-4, 202 pounds, and had a very solid career with the Terriers before joining the Texas Stars late in the season. He also settled in quickly in Texas, with five points in his first nine professional games.

He does fill the Stars always-open hole for a right-shot right-wing. He's been adding weight to his frame, putting on as much as 25 pounds over the past two years, and he could easily stand to fill out a little bit more with his height. He's probably still a year away from being an NHL regular, but he's also likely to get a good look in training camp, as Mark Stepneski details in this prospect profile.

"He’s a big man, right shot. He’s more cerebral than I thought he was. He’s been well coached," said Scott White, Texas Stars GM and Dallas Stars Director of Minor League Operations. "The detail of his game defensively is good, he makes good decisions with the puck, he’s strong along the wall and I sense that will improve because he’ll get some added strength over the summer, which he needs. He’s got a big frame; he just needs to fill out a little bit."

After the jump, evaluating the Stars forward corps, all the Jordie Benn you can handle and reactions to CBC's new silliest bit.

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Oh Dustin Brown, are you trying to make me hate you more?

The Los Angeles Kings captain played a huge role in helping his team advance to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1993 as they dispatched the Phoenix Coyotes in Game 5. But he also showed why he's considered a pretty reprehensible player by opposing fans who watch him repeatedly.

Without even getting into the diving issue (if you want to relive those laughs, see here), Brown laid out a classic kneeing hit in overtime on Phoenix's Michal Rozsival. He was not penalized on the play, but let me break down for you why all the arguments about this being a clean hit are wrong.

First, the rulebook definition of kneeing:

50.1 Kneeing - Kneeing is the act of a player leading with his knee and in some cases extending his leg outwards to make contact with his opponent.

Now, once you've watched Brown's hit, you might ask yourself, "Self, there's also shoulder contact in that hit, and his knee isn't ridiculously far from his body. Is that really kneeing?" Yes, because while the shoulders do bounce off each other, the momentum from the hit actually comes from the knee into Rozsival. You can tell that because of how they spin coming out of the contact. Rozsival just drops straight down because he didn't get spun (which would have happened if any momentum from the hit had come into his shoulder). His knee gave because that's where the momentum of the hit came through. If it was full-body or primarily shoulder, he would have spun because the impact would have been spread and not on a small joint that was not braced for that type of impact. Because Brown was properly braced for a knee hit, his knee stays stable and he spins. With no momentum coming from the upper-body contact, this cannot be considered a full-body hit with knee involvement. The other dead giveaway is Brown's stance. He is gliding with his legs set in a way where it looks like he should be turning to the left (i.e., left knee further from his body than his right) but is not turning anymore. That's a classic extended knee stance.

And since people keep bringing it up, kneeing is not limited to kneecap-on-kneecap contact. Using the knee to hit any part of a player's body, from thigh to hamstring to shinpad to elbow if you can pull it off, is kneeing.

Finally, kneeing can still happen with shoulder contact. We all agree that Bryan Marchment was a dirty, dirty player whose knee-on-knee hit on Joe Nieuwendyk cost the Stars a shot a much deeper playoff run in 1998, right? Well that's considered a classic knee now, but it was actually from behind with some very substantial body contact. But because Marchment's knee was extended and used to target Nieuwendyk's lower body, it is a classic kneeing. Also, this hit from Kevin Porter earned him four games despite the fact that the shoulders also clack.

After the jump, more on Sheldon Souray and other free agents, reaction from the Kings and Coyotes game, including a very cranky Mike Smith, and epic playoff beards.

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There are lots of approaches fans of any sport can take to tracking prospect development, from my "what happens happens" school to the people who have a ton of fun tracking every turn of every guy in the system.

But one thing everyone can agree on is the most important part of development is where it puts the player at the end of his path. It doesn't really matter if a guy has a single off year in the AHL or college if he ends up as an NHL regular.

And what I find fascinating is when people who consider themselves "in the know" about prospects completely disagree with each other, which happened last weekend when a Texas Stars ticket-holder and freelance writer Ross Bonander took very public exception to comments Les Jackson made about goalie Tyler Beskorowany.

Either Jackson is wholly ignorant of the situation in Cedar Park, or he is on the receiving end of misleading or terrible information from General Manager Scott White, or he is deliberately banging the gong on Beskorowany, for reasons only he could say. It doesn’t much matter; the organization is hanging the kid out to dry and he doesn’t deserve such repulsive and shameful behavior.

As far as I can tell, this is the quote Bonander has an issue with, from Mark Stepneski's series over at ESPN Dallas.

"If you were to ask him he would be disappointed in his season. He had moments where he looked like he was going to grasp it, but he really never got a hold," said Les Jackson, Dallas Stars Director of Player Personnel. "I am sure he is frustrated with the way the season went. He had a great opportunity to take the net when we got Richard (Bachman) up to the big team, but he kind of floundered all year."

You all can debate amongst yourselves who is right in this case (or the fact that neither of them are necessarily right here - the Stars were likely looking for very specific things from Beskorowany that were not dependent on statistics or wins and losses while Bonander is addressing some other issues).

After the jump, wrapping up the Stars turn at the World Championships, the art of the deflection and the playoff edition of hockey hugs.

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At least there won't be any more unexpected injuries.

That's probably the best news Dallas Stars fans can take out of Thursday's quarterfinal matches at the IIHF World Championships. That's because all three teams featuring Stars players - Canada, Sweden and the United States - went down in one-goal losses and are headed home.

Jamie Benn and the Canadiens were first to fall in a 3-2 loss to Slovakia, which will play Russia in the semifinals. Then the Americans suffered a heartbreaking last-second loss to Finland, falling 3-2 after leading the game 2-1 on a Bobby Ryan goal.

Finally, the co-host Swedish team was upset by the Czech Republic, which also scored in the final minute to knock out Tre Kronor and Loui Eriksson.

Eriksson had the best individual tournament of and Stars players, among the tournament leaders in points with five goals and eight assists. Benn was held scoreless Thursday and finishes with three goals and two assists while Alex Goligoski had a goal and four assists from the back end. Richard Bachman, who was also eliminated on Thursday, played one game and won in overtime.

After the jump, the details of Kari Lehtonen's injury, all the CBA news you didn't want to hear and Mike Modano and Jeremy Roenick try to relive their glory days.

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If you've been holding your breath since Kari Lehtonen down with some sort of right leg injury last weekend, you can let it out now.

While the Dallas Stars goalie isn't expected to return for Finland in the World Championships, the Stars don't seem to be that concerned about the severity of the injury he suffered late in the game against the United States.

As Mike Heika reports, they haven't necessarily determined what the injury is, with some questions about whether it's a groin or a knee (or, gulp, both). But with four months to recover and Lehtonen struggling in the games immediately before being injured against Canada and the US, maybe it's for the best.

``They're still looking at everything, and there has been a lot of communication between doctors there and our trainer,'' (Stars goalie coach Mike) Valley said. ``They're not 100 percent sure what the injury is, but I've been told it is not a serious injury.''

Team Finland will continue on to the quarterfinals for a rematch with the United States without Lehtonen. They will also be missing Anssi Salmela, who was suspended three games for his hit on Alex Goligoski.

After the jump, more World Championships updates, a look back at the odd FWST column from last week and Tomas Vincour had what now?

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When someone as important to the Dallas Stars as Kari Lehtonen gets injured at the World Championships, one of the questions that almost always follows is why send the NHL players over to the tournament in the first place?

A big part of the answer is the importance of international hockey to the European players. There's a reason that, health and NHL playoffs allowing, the best Swedish, Finnish, Russian and Czech players are mainstays at the tournaments even if the top Americans and Canadians aren't.

But from an NHL club standpoint, playing in a short-term tournament with the WCs with so many must-win games is a decent substitute for Stanley Cup playoff experience. When a player like Jamie Benn has never made it to the NHL post-season, at least he is getting the experience of single-elimination games somewhere, as Mike Heika details in this blog post.

``It's great,'' (Stars general manager Joe) Nieuwendyk said. ``A player like Loui Eriksson, he really is becoming one of the leaders for his country. Goose is doing the same for the U.S. Kari, he's playing in a pressure-cooker over there, because every game is big for Finland. That's great experience.''

The Stanley Cup playoffs are all about how you react to winning and losing. Watch a few rounds, and you'll see the teams that survive are the ones who learn from the losses.

Pool play at the tournament ends Tuesday and the elimination rounds start Thursday.

After the Stars prospect updates, the first rumors about Ryan Suter and inside Jamie Benn's mind during his nightclub escapades.

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There was a lot of talk in the hockey community online, at least in the Dallas Stars and Montreal Canadiens corners, about Bob Gainey taking on a senior advisor role in Dallas.

Many Habs fans seem happy to see him gone after orchestrating some less-than-successful contracts and trades. And Stars fans seem cautiously optimistic for the large part though a little nervous that there is still too much emphasis on how the team was successful a decade ago.

Mike Heika had a very interesting take on the situation on his Dallas Morning News blog. He suggests that the Stars might want Gainey in there to challenge general manager Joe Nieuwendyk on some of the larger decisions to make sure things are thought through in the most complete way possible, drawing from his more than two decades in NHL management.

I added some of Heika's ruminations on how Gainey might fit into the front office as it stands at the moment to Gainey's quote about the questions he hopes to help answer within in the organization.

``I'm excited for the opportunity, because I believe the organization is at an important point,'' Gainey said. ``There is more emphasis on youth and how do you transfer the talent you have in prospects or at the AHL level into NHL talent, and that's something I find intriguing. I definitely have to familiarize myself with the talent and with the needs, but I would hope to add a perspective that maybe isn't there right now.''

It isn't...or wasn't. The Stars' coaching staff and front office is fairly green. Les Jackson has been around for a long time and is a respected voice, but he has been given a lot of responsibility in preparing for the draft (taking over a lot of what Tim Bernhardt was doing before Bernhardt was fired in September). Assistant GM Frank Provenzano is expanding his role from contracts to player assessment, but he and Nieuwendyk are learning together.

After the jump, catching up with the Stars at the world championships, Tarrant County already has a hockey team and some of the best toothless grins you've ever seen.

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Okay, so it's not quite revenge for the baseball-series-that-never-happened-last-fall, but the boys from the Texas Tornado came back to force overtime and eventually beat the St. Louis Bandits 4-3 in overtime Tuesday to win the Robertson Cup in front of their home fans.

It is the fifth NAHL title for the Tornado, the third most for any franchise in the league.

And fittingly, Texas natives played a very large role in all aspects of the game for the Tornado, as Mike Heika detailed in his game report.

Plano's Justin Greenberg popped in a shot at the edge of the net at the 4:36 mark of overtime, giving Texas a huge win in front of a rowdy crowd at Dr Pepper Arena. In addition to Greenberg, Plano's Marc Biggs scored a goal and Garland's Frederick Leisner got the win in goal.

After the jump, Stars teammates get to meet royalty in Finland, ownership updates from around the Western conference and you, too, can get a suite at the AAC.

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