The injury woes for the Dallas Stars continue to mount. On the heels of Alex Goligoski suffering a broken thumb that will keep him out for at least a month and perhaps more, Coach Glen Gulutzan announced today that Adam Burish has a broken hand and will also miss 4-6 weeks, taking both players out of the lineup potentially all the way through Christmas.
Burish suffered the broken hand from a Brenden Morrow shot. Krys Barch also suffered an injury last night and left the game early with a twisted ankle. He is day to day and will be reevaluated before Friday when the team goes to Colorado.
The team was set to get Steve Ott back from injury on Friday, and with both he and Burish in the lineup their depth at forward would have been re-solidified, particularly in the faceoff circle and penalty killing areas. Now Burish goes down and Ott’s return feels more like a necessity than a bonus.
A call-up could be imminent, though much depends on Krys Barch’s ankle. If he is able to go, Ott would presumably slide back into the top six, the third line remains the same with Fiddler/Dvorak/Nystrom, and Gulutzan continues to choose from Petersen, Barch, Dowell and Wandell. If Barch cannot go then they would sit right at 12 healthy forwards with a stretch of 7 games in 11 days coming up…
In that case we could see Tomas Vincour, Francis Wathier or Colton Sceviour being called up from the Texas Stars to supplement depth at forward during that busy stretch.
Adam Burish injuries seem to coincide frequently with poor stretches of play for the entire team and their record without him in the lineup was frighteningly bad. We documented that curiosity (probably a coincidence) last year here and many other times. Stars fans hope that particular quirk does not continue this season. 4-6 weeks is a long time.
It was said a hundred times this off-season: This team was partially re-built through free agency to avoid the kind of struggles it had last year when injury woes hit, as they always do. They now have the chance to back up that sentiment with the arrival of this first serious injury wave, and a three game losing streak to escape to boot.