It’s no secret the Dallas Stars have been dealing with their fair share of injuries this season.
Luckily for the team, the injury to starting goaltender ended up being a short-term issue rather than the plethora of long-term kinds the team has taken to the depth chart. Ben Bishop is expected to be ready for the team’s next game (Saturday versus the Vancouver Canucks). The team announced that they had sent down Landon Bow, who had been filling in as the backup to Anton Khudobin since Bishop went down in the contest with the New York Rangers nine days ago.
Bishop has missed five games since his injury, as well as the minutes he missed in the Rangers game. Since Bishop left the game when it was tied, he didn’t take any decision in that one, since really count it as six I guess. In that time, Khudobin has started every game as well as taking the decision against the Rangers. His record: 2-3-1 in that timeframe.
Stars fans of years past would be shouting HALLELUJAH from the rooftops at a record like that, as it seems that Dallas went through a string of backup goaltenders that couldn’t win a game in spot starts much less carry a team to anything resembling a .500 record if forced to be the starter for a stretch.
In this stretch, even though his record wasn’t a winning one, there was only one game in there where you could say Khudobin didn’t give the team a chance to win. That was the game in which he got completely lit up by the Pittsburgh Penguins in a rather ugly affair right before Thanksgiving. Otherwise, he was fairly steady between the pipes. His overtime loss was his greatest game this season, and he got no offensive help by the guys in front of him.
It’s nice to know that the Stars aren’t going to sink if the backup goaltender is coming into a game. Different kind of feeling this season in that regard.
INJURY UPDATES
The Stars are slowly but surely inching back to health, though the biggest additions to the lineup are still a ways away from being ready to play. Here’s where the IR list is at today:
- Ben Bishop is out with a lower body injury.
- Martin Hanzal has joined the team in practices. His return is still on track for early to mid-December as originally forecast after undergoing spinal fusion surgery.
- Marc Methot remains out with a lower-body injury.
- Connor Carrick is at least four weeks away from return from his lower body injury.
- John Klingberg is approximately four weeks away from return after injuring and undergoing surgery to fix his hand.
- Stephen Johns remains out with post-traumatic headaches with no timetable for return./