Monday Frisco update
/Andrew's Dallas Stars Page
It was a long day out in Frisco as players came in for season-ending meetings and packed up their stuff. Several of them talked to the media and so did co-GM Brett Hull and coach Dave Tippett. Here are some of the highlights.
As for team needs, a defenseman is high on the list. Hull said the Stars probably won’t know the health status of Sergei Zubov until later in the summer, so the plan is to find a player who can do what Zubov does. If Zubov returns, the group is that much better and if he can’t then the Stars are covered.
“You can call it a No. 1 or whatever, but we definitely need a guy that definitely has the ability to run the power play, eat up substantial minutes and add him to our core, which we think is pretty solid,” Hull said. “If you add Sergei Zubov to that group, think about how nice that group would look.”
As for the goaltending situation, a backup for Marty Turco is high on the list of things to do this offseason as well.
“I think it’s paramount,” Hull said. “A guy the coaching staff is comfortable with and a guy his teammates are comfortable with and someone who can spell Marty and give him time off. Maybe a guy of enough quality to push Marty to split games. We have a lot of confidence in Marty as well. We’re all human and have down years. Some of that falls on us too. It’s hard to be playing in 75 games a year. That’s an issue we are going to address.”
On the issue of Tobias Stephan, Tippett said Stephan didn’t inspire a lot of confidence with the coaches.
“He didn’t have a great camp and never really gave the coach staff a sense he could take the ball and run with it for any stretch of time,” Tippett said. “With the way our season way going you look for the consistency factor and go back to your No. 1 guy to try to get you that. I was up and down all year. “
On a side note, Stars goaltending consultant Andy Moog said he’s not ready to write off Stephan.
On the Jere Lehtinen front, Hull indicated the Stars wanted him to return.
“We’d love to have Jere back, but there are financial terms out there that we can go to and that he wants,” Hull said. “I am sure it will all get worked out.”
On the money front, Hull was asked if the Stars budget would allow them to spend to the cap and he said he no. He didn’t, however know where the budget would take them. That’s something they’ll find out later from owner Tom Hicks.
The Stars are in pretty good shape right now as far as the cap. They have 17 likely roster players for a cap cost of about 42 million. That includes the cost of paying half of Sean Avery’s salary. If you add in re-signing Mark Fistric, who is an restricted free agent, and if they were to bring back Zubov and Lehtinen under reasonable deals they would still plenty of roomm. Hull also pointed out that this season allowed the Stars to get a look at a lot of young players who could fill spots if there is a big budget crunch.
A few other items of note:
*James Neal will be playing for Canada at the World Championship in Switzerland. Matt Niskanen is playing for the USA. Loui Eriksson, Nicklas Grossman and Joel Lundqvist are playing for Sweden.
*Trevor Daley had his kneed scoped last week and will start rehab in a few weeks.
*Stephane Robidas’ injury was a knee, but he will not have any kind of surgery.
One funny note. Last night Jamie Benn’s Kelowna Rockets knocked the Tri-City Americans out of the Western Hockey League playoffs. Benn scored a goal in the game to run his points streak in the playoffs to ten games. Kelowana now moves onto the WHL Western Conference Finals. Stars assistant coach Stu Barnes is a co-owner of the Americans with Olaf Kolzig and joked that he would get even with Benn for knocking his team out of the playoffs. “I’ll get him,” Barnes joked about Benn. “A bag skate with just me and him on the ice.”
Here is some audio from Stars captain Brenden Morrow, Hull and Tippett.
Brenden Morrow
Brett Hull
Dave Tippett
