Morning Skate Update: Stars Line Combinations, Defensive Pairings

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The morning skate update has come and gone, with a few minor tweaks of what the Dallas Stars lines could look like tonight. Let’s look at each forward line:

Jamie Benn - Tyler Seguin - Alexander Radulov

True story, I typed out Radulov’s name as “Radulove” which might be subliminal messaging about how I feel about this line. I think it has the opportunity to be electric if they can get chemistry brewing between them all.

Mattias Janmark - Devin Shore - Brett Ritchie

Should have plenty of puck possession and be fast enough to backcheck when needed. Ritchie will be a nice net-front guy on this line. It appears as though Jason Spezza, who had the day off from practice yesterday, will get an extra day of rest before starting the grind of the season.

Antoine Roussel - Jason Dickinson - Tyler Pitlick

Nice mix of grit and puck possession here, a pretty decent third line.

Nick Caamano - Roope Hintz - Denis Gurianov

Here’s the future right here.

Defensive pairings got mixed a little bit around:

Esa Lindell - John Klingberg (reunited and it feels so good...?)
Marc Methot - Stephen Johns (I’m expecting them to play a lot of heavy minutes)
Jamie Oleksiak - Julius Honka (an audition of sorts to see if Oleksiak will work under Hitchcock’s system, as one of the defenders slotted to battle for a bottom six/#7 role)

Ben Bishop and Mike McKenna are still expected to split the start for the Stars tonight.

The Blues should look something like this tonight:

Steen-Fabbri-Blais
Sobotka-Thomas-Kyrou
MacEachern-Barbashev-Thompson
Megan-Brodziak-Kostin

Walman-Bortuzzo
Dunn-Prosser
Gunnarsson-Schmaltz

Goalies: Hutton, Binnington

Stars Make Roster Cuts

The Stars sent three players back to their respective juniors teams earlier today:

Ondrej Vala (Kamloops Blazers of the WHL)
Jason Robertson (Kingston Knights of the OHL)
Brett Davis (Kootenay Ice of the WHL)

And released four others from their amateur tryouts:

Shaw Boomhower
Zachary Roberts
Tomas Soustal
Cole Tymkin

Injury Updates

Martin Hanzal should start skating later this week. First round draft pick defensive prospect Miro Heiskanen will remain in Finland with his team and will not attend training camp in Dallas this year.