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Dallas Stars' Tyler Seguin Named NHL's First Star of the Week; Kari Lehtonen has Concussion

The Stars first line center was named the best in the NHL last week for his nine points in four games, news that was tempered a bit by some bad news the Stars got regarding injured goalie Kari Lehtonen.

By Erin Bolen
Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

When Tyler Seguin is good, which is most of the time, he is very, very good. And a chunk of the time, he's the best player on the ice for either  team.

The Dallas Stars first-line center had one of those stretches last week as he tore through both Western and Eastern conference opponents, and his efforts earned him the NHL's 1st Star of the week.

The news came down Monday morning.

Seguin had nine points in four games, including eight points in the team's wins over the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Wild. His hat trick and two assists against the Canucks along with game-tying goal and two assists against the Wild were all huge parts of helping the Stars eek out a tiny bit of breathing room between themselves, the Winnipeg Jets and the Phoenix Coyotes.

If you want some context, Seguin has as many goals as Sidney Crosby and as many points as Patrick Kane. That's pretty darn good.

Here's the NHL's official release on Seguin.

Seguin led the NHL with nine points (4-5--9) as the Stars (31-23-10) earned six of a possible eight points for the week, strengthening their hold on the second Wild Card position in the Western Conference. Seguin notched one assist in a 3-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres Mar. 3 and tallied five points, including his third hat trick of the season, in a 6-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks Mar. 6. He finished the week by tallying a goal and two assists in a 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Wild Mar. 8. Seguin's eight-point outburst was the most points by a Stars player in a two-game span since the 1992-93 season, when Mike Modano notched 3-5--8 from Feb. 1-3. The 22-year-old Brampton, Ont. native ranks fifth in NHL scoring with a team-leading 66 points (29-37--66), while his Stars-high 29 goals is tied for sixth overall.

Speaking of Modano, the Stars introduced the Mike Modano Trophy at the season ticket holder event after Saturday's game. The trophy, all 5-foot-1, 140 pounds of it, will be awarded to the Stars players with the most points at the end of the season. Jamie Benn is putting up a good chase, but Seguin has a six point lead on him with 18 games left in the regular season.

All that good news couldn't go unchecked though. After a few days holding out hope, the Stars finally made the bad news on Lehtonen official.

You kinda knew it was coming after watching his unprotected head bounce off the back of the crossbar after the full-speed collision from Erik Haula, but still. Ouch.

The good news (if there is any) is, as far as I can tell, Lehtonen does not have a history of concussion. He has missed plenty of games due to injury through his career, most of those in Atlanta were back or groin problems. There's one mysterious upper-body injury that caused him to miss six games in March of 2009, but that also happened in a string of back issues, so I'm going to assume, and hope, it's that for now.

Time tables for concussion generally are a week after the end of symptoms, so having no timetable today could mean he's still having headaches or other concussions symptoms. Heika followed that news up with a quote from Ruff that said: "When he starts feeling well, he'll start exercising again," which would indeed imply he's still having symptoms.

Get well soon, Kari.