Dallas Stars Daily Links: Stars Tackle Illness, Flames In Victory

The Calgary Flames weren't the only thing standing in the way for the Dallas Stars on Monday night at the American Airlines Center.

There is a mystery bug floating around the Stars locker room, catching up with defenseman Philip Larsen before he could even get ready for the game and apparently affecting others while they were clawing their way to a 4-3 victory.

Brad mentioned it in his post-game recap, and Mike Heika had a few more details on its impact.

Stars were battling illness on Monday and were sending players to locker room during game. Practice cancelled for Tuesday.

— Mike Heika (@MikeHeika) March 19, 2013

That explains a few things about Monday night, including some of the odd line juggling and perhaps some of the moments where the players looked lower energy. It also makes the team withstanding the barrage at the end that much more impressive, if still a little concerning that they put themselves in that position in the first place.

As Heika wrote, the team will get a day of to recover (and possibly rehydrate, depending on what type of bug it is) before heading out to Colorado to try and conquer the Avalanche.

Also in today's links, the bounceback effect after the loss to Chicago, the parallel situations of the Flames and Stars captains and Marty Turco goes mingling in the Stars locker room.

• It wasn't quite the 60 minute performance the Stars had been hoping for (and desperately searching for since the win over the Kings more than a week ago), but it was good enough for their first victory of the homestand. [DallasNews.com]
• And it was also a bounceback effort after the potentially devastating loss to the high-flying Chicago Blackhawks. [Dallas Stars Inside Edge]
• The Flames knew the Stars would be coming out fired up after the beating they suffered at the hands of the Blackhawks last weekend. But that didn't help much in the first period. [Calgary Sun]
• This is a really nice column on the parallel situations of Jarome Iginla and Brenden Morrow, both long-time captains and one-time "face of the franchise" who are dealing with the very real possibility of being shipped out at the trade deadline. [Calgary Herald]
• Jamie Benn had some very pointed words for the Stars after the loss to Chicago, and those around the team say that's a sign of him growing into a leadership role. [DallasNews.com]
• Y'all might have heard, but Corey Perry signed a gigantic deal with the Anaheim Ducks to avoid unrestricted free agency this summer. He will be a Duck for the next eight years for $69 million total, or an $8.675 million cap hit per year. The deal also includes a no movement clause. [Los Angeles Times]
• And why exactly did Perry choose to stay in Anaheim despite the Ducks now having more than 40 percent of next year's cap invested in two forwards and two goalies? [Puck Daddy]
• Cody Eakin will learn, but there's definitely an art to picking the guy you want to fight when someone wants a piece of you. Matt Hendricks demonstrates admirably that sometimes you just take the lesser of two evils. [Backhand Shelf]
• Almost every professional athlete has moments they want back, and Sergei Kostitsyn of the Nashville Predators joined that long list on Sunday with an incredibly ill-timed line-change attempt. To make him feel a little better, our friends at On the Forecheck have put together a list of the five biggest blunders in Preds history. [On the Forecheck]
• Bonus audio, as Eric Nystrom was on the post-game show with Bob and Dan, and the BaD Radio intern captured and linked it for our listening pleasure. [SoundCloud]
• Marty Turco is back hosting Stars Insider, this one from March 12, and gets his interview on with Brenden Dillon, Cody Eakin and Richard Bachman. Also, props to Turco for talking Cody Eakin into the fight against Iginla.