They said Jamie Oleksiak might need a good half season more with the Texas Stars before they would call him NHL ready.
How about 22 games?
They might need him after defensmen Stephane Robidas suffered a pretty horrific lower body, believed to be a knee, injury halfway through the second period Friday night against the Chicago Blackhawks.
It was an an innocent looking play as Robidas laid out to poke a shot and then slid into the boards, but he crashed his leg into the wall, catching it and letting out a cry, soon to be tears, immediately. Stars medical personnel deployed post-haste while Robidas, the epitome of hockey toughness writhed on the ice.
UPDATE: Stars are now saying it’s a “leg fracture”
Stephane Robidas has been taken to UT Southwestern. Leg fracture, according to a Stars official.
— Mark Stepneski (@StarsInsideEdge) November 30, 2013
It’s an uncomfortable sight, and here’s just a little bit of it if you dare. We’ll get a better video when one becomes available… (If you’d like to make one available let me know…)
And so we hold our breaths, and hope that Robi has not played his last in a Dallas uniform, or even at all. It looks that bad, based on the look on his face and his immediate panic. They’d eventually stretcher him off, taking all precaution.
Kevin Connauton is on the roster and waiting. Aaron Rome was injured recently in practice. The hole, however, is on the high-end defensive side and that could seem to beg for Oleksiak’s recall rather than the skill of Kevin Connauton. Time will tell. A fracture could actually be good news in comparison to a torn ligament or three, but we’ll just see.
Get well, Robi.