Preview: Dallas Stars @ Colorado Avalanche - Trevor Daley Could Miss Start of Season

The Dallas Star enter their final trio of preseason games tonight as they take on the Colorado Avalanche in Denver, but eyes are turning already to regular season opener and who may or may not be available.

Enter the nebulous "upper body injury" and Stars veteran d-man Trevor Daley, who is skating, but will miss some significant time.

"It looks like Trevor will miss a little bit of time," Lindy Ruff told media Tuesday morning. "I don't think he'll be able to start the season, but it won't be a long time."

Daley was unwilling to go that far, saying that he'd see where he is in the next few days first. Read the full quotes at Stars Inside Edge, including an interesting passage about Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin getting a chance to kill penalties tonight in Denver. (Time for a Jamie Benn power play, I believe is the expression we used to use...)

With Aaron Rome only in the "conditioning skating" phase of his return the Stars will have some real calls to make on defense when the Florida Panthers return on October 3rd. Jamie Oleksiak seems certain to be on the roster in October. If Daley or Rome or both go to IR it could make room for Kevin Connauton as well.

Lines from practice were reported to be these:

Benn-Seguin-Chiasson
Whitney-Eakin-Nichushkin
Garbutt-Mueller-Sceviour
MacDermid-Morin-Stransky

Benn-Goligoski
Connauton-Dillon
Nemeth-Jokipakka

Lehtonen
Ellis

Ruff told media yesterday that he sees this set with Colorado as an important test, and that he'll use some strong lineups, particularly on Thursday at home.

"I see [tonight] and our home game as being the two most important ones," said Ruff on Monday. "The back-to-back one, the one we'll finish the preseason with we'll go lighter on. Typically, your last game is your strongest lineup. I look at it that our home game will be our strongest lineup. The back-to-back game is one where we make sure we take out some of our key guys."

So it looks like Oklahoma City will see only a smattering of veterans, as did San Antonio.

Kari Lehtonen is expected to play some portion of the next two games, if not all of them.

Tonight's game might be streamed on "950 Cruisin Oldies" in Denver... not too sure on that front, however. We'll update later.

Update: Cameron Gaunce has been placed on waivers on his way down to Cedar Park.