The Dallas Stars are hoping to close out this road trip on a high note in Boston tonight, but may have to do so without their leading scorer. Tyler Seguin was at the arena this morning for the team’s skate, but was sent back to the hotel with the flu, according to the Stars.
Unfortunately, it seems that Seguin may not be the only one.
“There’s three guys that are fighting a little bit of the flu, Tyler’s one of them and we’ve got a couple of other guys that skated that are fighting it,” said coach Lindy Ruff. “Even our play-by-play guy is down and out. So that’s when you really know it’s hitting you hard.”
“It’s a possibility, he didn’t feel well enough to skate this morning” said Ruff, when asked if Seguin might not play. “The other two guys were feeling better. We’ll just see when he gets here.”
The Stars have been traveling across the barren tundra of the Northeast United States the past five days or so, and you wonder if the sudden exposure to a blizzard has had this effect on the team — or it’s just that time of year and something is going around again. In any case, Seguin is questionable to play tonight for the Stars against his former team in a game that Dallas desperately needs to win.
With Seguin suddenly out, lines that skated this morning were, per Heika:
Benn-Horcoff-Ritchie
Cole-Spezza-Hemsky
Roussel-Eakin-Garbutt
Sceviour-Fiddler-Eaves
There’s a chance that if Seguin can’t actually play tonight, the lines that Lindy Ruff rolls with will look a bit different. As it stands, this allows the Stars to maintain some continuity between practice and skate without going crazy on the line combinations, in case Seguin is able to play tonight after all.
Ruff stated that if Seguin can’t play, then he’ll likely play Jamie Benn at center on the top line rather than Horcoff.
It’s a game that you know Seguin is fighting to play in, after putting up nine shots on goal last game against the Bruins and finishing scoreless in a very frustrating loss on home ice.
“I think if we use our speed we’ll get the opportunities, but we have to make sure on those good opportunities that we finish and it’s been an issue and we’ve lost some games,” said Ruff. “We’ve played very well as a team, but we’ve lost some games that we just haven’t put the puck in the back of the net or we’ve made one or two defensive mistakes as well.”
The Bruins loss was another game the Stars dominated but couldn’t outduel the opposing goaltender; the good news is that Tuuka Rask won’t be in net this time.
The Bruins will start Niklas Svedberg in goal instead, who hasn’t appeared in a game since a 14-save shutout over the Devils on Jan. 8. For the season, Svedberg is 5-5-0 with a 2.22 GAA and .922 save percentage.
The Bruins lines/paris this morning:
Lucic-Krejci-Pastrnak
Marchand-Bergeron-Smith
Kelly-Soderberg-Eriksson
Paille-Campbell-Cunningham
Chara-Hamilton
Seidenberg-McQuaid
Krug-Miller