Crawford said he had nothing new on Mike Modano, who had an appendectomy yesterday. The official word is indefinite, but the best guess still appears to be two weeks.

With Modano out, Brian Sutherby will be back in the lineup from all appearances.

Kari Lethonen in net, but we already knew that. 

Only one game last night and it was a big one. Detroit won 2-1 at Calgary to move three points ahead of the Flames in the race for eighth place and within one point of Nashville for seventh. The Red Wings are now nine points ahead of the Stars.

Last night's game was a good one. Big turning point came with Detroit on the power play late in the second period. Curtis Glencross got a shorthanded breakaway, was hooked and denied a legit scoring chance, so he got a penalty shot. Jimmy Howard stopped him and Pavel Datsyuk roofed a shot on what was left of the Wings power play to tie the game at 1-1 with 50 seconds left in the period. Tomas Holmstrom wins the game with 1:19 remaining in regulation when he deflects a Johan Franzen shot past Miikka Kiprusoff.

Here's a look at the race for those final spots heading into the tonight's games.

“I guess it matters how intrusive they are. No one knows for sure. I would think he’ll play again this year,” Crawford said. “We’ll just have to see how he comes out of it. He’ll be indefinite until we see him come out of it.”

Right now, there’s no plan to call anybody up. They’ve got a couple extra forwards and Crawford said he’ll probably bring Brian Sutherby back into the lineup tomorrow against the Sharks.

Dallas Stars center Mike Modano underwent surgery today for an appendectomy and will be out of action indefinitely. He is not expected to play in the Stars’ home game vs. San Jose on Tuesday evening.

Modano, 39, did not practice with the team today. He has appeared in 54 games for Dallas this season, scoring 13 goals and 13 assists for 26 points with 20 penalty minutes.

The Stars will play the San Jose Sharks Tuesday night at American Airlines Center at 7:30 (CT). The game will be televised locally on FOX Sports Southwest and can be heard on Sports Radio 1310 The Ticket.

Here’s video of the hit:

“When Versus returns today it will be available in HD and in the same programming packages it was previously found in.”

Here’s the press release:

DIRECTV and Comcast have reached an agreement to return VERSUS to the DIRECTV programming lineup today. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

VERSUS will return to the same DIRECTV programming packages it was in at the end of August 2009.

“We are pleased that both sides were able to work out a satisfactory deal to bring this programming back to our customers,” said Derek Chang, executive vice president, Content Strategy and Development, DIRECTV.

“We’re excited that we were able to come to a fair agreement that puts VERSUS back in millions of homes with DIRECTV in time for our busy spring programming schedule,” said Jamie Davis, president of VERSUS. “We look forward to super-serving these fans with NHL regular-season and playoff coverage, our first live UFC event and much more.”

Zubov’s final regular season stats were 10 goals, 32 assists and a plus-eight rating while playing in 53 of his team’s 56 games. He had one assist and a plus-one rating in four playoff games.

The KHL’s English site is here.

SKA’s English site is here.

But there’s another former Star you can follow in the KHL playoffs. He’s tied for the goal scoring lead in the postseason so far and you can find his KHL page here.

“He’s had a good couple weeks with us now and he’s getting more familiar and, more importantly, conditioning-wise he’s ready to get the start and we’re going to give him the opportunity,” Stars coach Marc Crawford said. “We’re hoping he comes in and plays a strong game.”

This will be Lehtonen’s second start with the Stars. The first one was a 6-3 loss at Pittsburgh on March 6 when he looked rusty and showed some signs of fatigue as the game moved along.

“I think I am more ready now than I was in Pittsburgh,” said Lehtonen. “Now I just need to go out there and help this team. I am confident I can do that.”

As for defenseman Nicklas Grossman, he practiced today and Crawford said it looks like he is ready to return from a back injury, but there won’’t be definitive word on his status for the San Jose game until tomorrow morning. 

Here's a look at the playoff picture heading into tonight's action. I have to say I am impressed with the Predators. A lot of people thought they might fade. They haven't. They won three of four on their just concluded road trip. Key game tonight is Detroit at Calgary The good news for the Stars is one of those teams won't get two points. The bad news for the Stars is one of those teams will get two points.