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Dallas Stars Daily Links: Can Jamie Benn Win an Art Ross Trophy With Hitchcock as Coach?

Posted on by Shawn Ladd

Somehow I don’t think Stars fans would be happy with this scenario. Well maybe the division winning.

Could Jamie Benn win the Art Ross Trophy this season with Ken Hitchcock behind the bench? Was just one of the questions posed to Mike Heika this week. (SportsDay DFW)

SportsDay moderator:

What needs to happen for Benn to return to being an Art Ross winning, point-scoring machine? Is it possible on a Hitch team?

Mike Heika:

@SportsDay Neal Broten told me a story once about turning from a scoring forward to a two-way forward. He said when he was a scoring forward and he saw a loose puck, he would just take off. That’s how he put up 105 points in 1985-86, He said when he became a two-way player and saw a loose puck, he would survey the ice and see if there were any negatives to taking off. In that second of surveying, he said a lot of scoring chances disappeared, but that he also prevented a lot of scoring chances against.

That’s how his scoring numbers went down,but eventually how he played better overall hockey.

That might happen with Benn and Seguin. That duo was given very free reign with Lindy Ruff and were a very dynamic offensive pairing They will have to play better two-way hockey under Ken Hitchcock.

Now, to be fair to Hitch, he wants his forwards to turn good defensive play into scoring chances. He loves to counter-attack, and Benn and Seguin should benefit. Mike Modano put up good numbers with Hitch. So did Brett Hull, so it can be done.

I think what Benn might looking at going forward is a better chance at winning the Stanley Cup than the Art Ross, and I think he is excited about that opportunity. Heck, toss in a Conn Smythe Trophy, and he’d be ecstatic.

The annual Hockey News Yearbook came out this week and they have the Tyler Seguin and the Captain ranked #20 and #21 in their Top 50 player list in the NHL. (Between the Blue Lines)

You can get a outsider’s view of the Stars prospects in the Summer Showcase.

Sean Shapiro sat down with Riley Tufte where he talked about his freshman year at UMD and how he can’t wait to build on his productive 2nd half of a season. (NHL)

a Jake Oettinger interview:

Experience the greatness of Jere Lehtinen:

Sounds like the Panthers have some big expectations for former Stars player Colton Sceviour. (The Rat Trick)

Believe it or not but Seguin was almost a Sabres before Jim Nill made his deal. A look at other trades that fell through including the first time Nill tried to get Dan Hamhuis from the Canucks. (The Sportster)

Check out Razor Reaugh’s hobby jamming on the guitar.

Marty Turco emceeing an event.

Texas Stars:

The Texas Stars released the Promotional Schedule yesterday. Highlights include a Harry Potter Night and a National Lampoon night.

The big news yesterday was the announcement that NBC analyst Eddie Olczyk has been diagnosed with colon cancer.

For more on this story check out Second City Hockey’s story on this matter.

Go back in time to the 2006 NHL Draft when the Blues had the #1 pick and instead of Erik Johnson they chose Jonathan Toews. Do the Blackhawks still win 3 Stanley Cups? or Does St. Louis win their first ever cup? That is the premise in the Yahoo series What if… with a bit of a “Quantum Leap” spin. (Yahoo Sports)

The NHL released the preseason schedule.

Here is the Stars portion of the schedule in September.

The Kings and Canucks will play a 2 game series in China during preseason. (NBCSN)

If you thought 9 defensemen corps was tough to deal with Vegas has a bigger problem with 11 Dmen. (insert your favorite “Spinal Tap” amp joke)  The other problem is most of them are not very talented so finding a top pair could be difficult. (The Hockey News)

Tough to see how this helps promote the league.

Hockey will return to ESPN in a way their parent company Disney acquired majority ownership of BAMTech and will start their own subscription ESPN streaming service that could start streaming NHL games as early as 2018. (Courier-Post)

Sid the Kid is no longer as he is 30 now. How does Crosby’s accomplishments stack up to other greats when they turned 30? (THN)

Ken Dryden’s birthday was August 8th and was one of the best goalies during the 70s

A brawl broke out between Canada and Russia during a pre-Olympic tournament.

Finally some hockey movie quotes to cure the summer no-hockey blues.

Talking Points