Saturday practice update
A few notes from today’s practice in Frisco:
Nicklas Grossman, who was placed on IR today, will travel with the team on the upcoming road trip. There’s a chance he could play the Montreal game on Thursday.
Maxime Fortunus, who was called up today from Texas, was not at practice. He will join the team in Columbus.
Stars coach Marc Crawford said Mike Ribeiro is expected to return to Dallas this weekend and it will be about two weeks before he starts light workouts. Right now it seems that the most likely scenario is that Ribeiro, who is expected to miss 4-6 weeks, would return after the Olympic break.
“He’ll be doing nothing for at least two weeks. Once the doctors give us some clearance then he’ll start doing some light activity,” Crawford said. “It’s a significant injury. The Olympic break takes him to about the five week point. He’ll have to heal extremely well to make it back before the Olympic break.”
It was somewhat of a short practice today since the team had a plane to catch. Stephane Robidas and Brad Richards had maintenance days and didn’t practice.
Krahn to miss AHL All-Star game
Goalie Brent Krahn will not play in the AHL All-Star game due to injury. Krahn’s hasn’t played since November 22 with a lower body issue. He’s been replaced by Justin Peters of the Albany River Rats.
Grossman to IR, Fortunus recalled
Here’s the release:
The Dallas Stars announced today that the club has placed defenseman Nicklas Grossman on injured reserve with a lower body injury, suffered in Wednesday’s game at the New York Rangers. The move is retroactive to Jan. 6. Dallas has also recalled defenseman Maxime Fortunus from the Texas Stars, Dallas’ primary development affiliate in the American Hockey League (AHL).
Grossman, 24, has played in 41 games this season for Dallas, recording four points (0g, 4a). The 6-4, 226-pound defenseman ranks tied for second on the team in plus/minus with a +5 rating. Grossman set career highs last season in goals (2), assists (10) and points 12. The Stockholm, Sweden native is in his third season in the NHL, having played all 192 games with the Stars. He was Dallas’ second round selection (56th overall) in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft.Fortunus, 26, has collected six goals and five assists in 34 games for the Texas Stars in 2009-10. He scored the lone goal for Texas last night in a 3-1 loss at Abbotsford. The La Prairie, Quebec, native made his NHL debut on Dec. 19th against the Detroit Red Wings, and is scoreless in five games with Dallas this season. Fortunus has played in 330 career AHL games posting 26 goals and 60 assists in seven AHL seasons. The 6-1, 198-pound defenseman was signed as a free agent by Dallas on July 3, 2008.
The Dallas Stars will face the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena in Ohio on Sunday night (6:00 pm CST, TV: FOX Sports Southwest, Radio: Sports Radio 1310 The Ticket).
Stars-Islanders thoughts
It wasn’t pretty but it was a win, and a win is what they needed. It’s two points. What does it all mean? Who knows. This next stretch where they play six of eight on the road will say a lot, but the win and points Friday night were important.
Give the Stars credit. There were some times in the game where the tide could have shifted big time the other way, but they bounced back. The Kyle Okposo goal at the end of the first period could have been a huge turning point. It wasn’t. The Stars bounced back to tie it in the second and played a strong period of hockey.
The Frans Nielsen goal off the Marty Turco turnover that made it 3-2 New York could have been a big turning point. It wasn’t. The Stars answered it with a goal 24 seconds later.
Marc Crawford mentioned they showed a lot of resiliency and they did. That included Turco, who is still fighting it out there. He came up with a couple of big stops there at the end to help preserve the win.
A lot of guys played well. Brenden Morrow was great in the game. The top line - Loui Eriksson, Brad Richards, Jere Lehtinen - came up big. Lehtinen is playing his best hockey of the season right now. Tom Wandell played well and Jamie Benn had a big assist in the game. Stephane Robidas was excellent and Mark Fistric did a nice job as his partner with Nicklas Grossman out.
Overall, they did a better job of executing than they did earlier in the week. They did a better job winning puck battles. There were times when they looked a little shaky in their own end, but they overcame that and got the job done.
And the points were big because they helps them in the playoff race. They’re still hanging around it. The season did not end with the recent three-game losing streak. It didn’t help them, but it didn’t kill them. There’s still a lot of hockey to be played.
That said, Friday’s victory is one game for a team that is 5-6-2 in its last 13 games overall. And it’s a team that is 1-6-3 in its last 10 on the road and is facing another stretch of a lot of road hockey. They’ve got to find a way to start winning some games on the road and it needs to start soon. Sunday in Columbus would be a good start.
Tonight’s lineup
Eriksson-Richards-Lehtinen
Morrow-Wandell-Benn
Neal-Modano-Petersen
Sutherby-Ott-Barch
Fistric-Robidas
Skrastins-Daley
Woywitka-Niskanen
Turco
Auld (backup)
Injured: Ribeiro (throat), Grossman (knee)
Scratches: Peters, Brunnstrom (conditioning)
Friday update: No Grossman tonight
Nicklas Grossman is out tonight with an undisclosed injury. He is day to day.
That means Jeff Woywitka will be back in
It was an optional skate this morning at the AAC and several players weren’t out there.
Word from the other side is that Rick DiPietro will start in goal for the Islanders. It’s his first start in more than a year.
On the minor league front, Michael Neal has been called up to the Texas Stars from the Idaho Steelheads.
Razor on The Ticket
Daryl Reaugh made his weekly appearance with The Musers this morning and talked about the loss to the Rangers, the Mike Ribeiro injury, the fight to make the playoffs and more. Here’s the audio:
Peters recalled
So much for not bringing up anybody. The Stars have just recalled Warren Peters from the Texas Stars. Here’s the release:
The Dallas Stars announced today that the club has recalled center Warren Peters from the Texas Stars, Dallas’ primary development affiliate in the American Hockey League (AHL).
Peters, 27, has played 32 games for Texas so far this season, recording 18 points (12g, 6a) and 21 penalty minutes. He has also appeared in two games for Dallas, collecting a goal. The 6-0, 198-pound center signed with Dallas as a free agent on July 6, 2009.
Morrow on BaD Radio
Stars captain Brenden Morrow was on BaD Radio a short time ago. He talked with Bob and Dan about last night’s loss to Sean Avery and the Rangers, the Mike Ribeiro injury, his penchant for kicking pucks into the net and more. Here’s the audio:
Crawford on Ribeiro
Here’s some audio of Stars head coach Marc Crawford talking about the injury to Mike Ribeiro and how the team will handle him being out of the lineup.
Thursday practice update
Mike Ribeiro being out 4-6 weeks with a throat contusion was the big news out of practice today.
“We’ll get through it,” said Stars head coach Marc Crawford. “And the way to get through it is have everybody step up a little bit and not rely on one person to overcome the important contributions of Mike Ribeiro. First of all, we are very concerned about Mike. That’s a scary injury.”
Right now there is no plan to call anybody up. Fabian Brunnstrom is expected to stay with the Texas Stars until next week as planned.
Here’s the lineup Crawford plans to roll out in Ribeiro’s absence for now.
Eriksson-Richards-Lehtinen
Morrow-Wandell-Benn
Neal-Modano-Petersen
Sutherby-Ott-Barch
The Wandell line moves up the pecking order, so to speak. Ott is going to move to center for now.
A few other notes, Richards, Robidas and Grossman did not practice today. Maintenance days for all three.
Ribeiro out 4-6 weeks
Here is the release from the Stars:
The Dallas Stars announced today that center Mike Ribeiro has been placed on injured reserve and is expected to be out four-to-six weeks due to a throat contusion suffered on Wednesday night at the New York Rangers.
Ribeiro underwent a procedure at St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Center in Manhattan last night to repair the contusion, which included a tracheotomy. He is expected to stay in the hospital for a few days before returning to Dallas.
Ribeiro suffered the injury when he was hit in the neck by the stick of Rangers forward Chris Higgins at 15:32 of the second period last night. Higgins was assessed a two-minute minor penalty on the play.
Ribeiro has appeared in 43 games for the Stars this season, scoring 10 goals and 23 assists for 33 points.
Stars-Rangers thoughts
That’s the Sean Avery that the Stars were hoping to see last season. It never happened and it really hasn’t happened much for the Rangers this season either. Until tonight. He was outstanding. It was vintage Avery. He was productive and combative and he was under the skin of the Stars.
While he was the story of the night, he wasn’t the sole reason the game turned out the way it did.
The Rangers won the goaltending battle. Henrik Lundqvist delivered some big, timely saves for the Rangers. Marty Turco couldn’t do the same for the Stars. The Ales Kotalik goal from distance that made it a 3-2 game turned out to be the winner.
It’s not all on Turco. That fourth goal, the one where Avery shook Matt Niskanen along the boards and set up Chris Drury in front of the net, was a killer.
They can’t continue to give up four or five a night and expect to have any kind of success, especially when they are facing quality teams. You might catch a break once in a while and touch up a Chicago for five goals, but it’s not going to happen on a regular basis.
The power play had its chances, but didn’t deliver. I thought Christopher Higgins should have gotten a double minor for the high stick on Mike Ribiero, which would have given the Stars even more power play time on top of the five-on-three they got. But the fact is they had six power play chances in the game and didn’t cash in. Score on that 5-on-3 and it’s different game. But they didn’t and now they’ve dropped three straight in regulation.
I’d go on about the road woes and how they need to figure that out because they’ve got more road games coming up, but right now they’ve got to get it together for Friday’s game against the Islanders, who have climbed back to the .500 mark thanks to a 3-0-1 run.
Ribeiro update
Here’s an update on Stars center Mike Ribeiro, who took a stick to the neck area in tonight’s game against the New York Rangers. He was taken to a New York hospital, checked out by doctors to make sure everything was OK and then he was released. He is going to spend the night at a New York hotel and as long as everything is fine tomorrow, he’ll fly back to Dallas then.
Quotable: Sean Avery
Rangers forward Sean Avery was asked after the game what was different for him tonight:
His response: “I was getting paid by two teams.”
