Stars News and Notes: Ribeiro in; Ott and Fistric out
/Andrew's Dallas Stars Page
There was good news and bad news on the injury front for the Dallas Stars Monday. The good news: Mike Ribeiro will be back after missing the last five weeks with a throat contusion. The bad news: forward Steve Ott and defenseman Mark Fistric both will miss this week's road trip and won't return until after the Olympic break.
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Ott had an emergency appendectomy Monday morning. He contacted the team's trainers at 4 o'clock Monday morning and then went on to have the surgery.
"It's unfortunate for Steve, first and foremost," said Stars coach Marc Crawford. "He's been playing really well."
Ott came out the surgery well, according to Crawford.
Fistric, who injured a knee in Columbus last week and sat out Saturday's game against Phoenix, tested it Monday morning but it didn't go well. After practice it was decided he would have arthroscopic knee surgery.
"While no surgery is minor, we are relatively confident he will be able to play fairly quickly," said Crawford.
The hope is that both Fistric and Ott will be back right after the Olympic break.
"The good news on both accounts is that if there ever is a good time to be injured, it is when you have a 14-day break, because the rehabilitation will allow them to be options for us once we come back from the Olympic break," Crawford said.
Right wing Jere Lehtinen is expected to move into Ott's position on a line with center Jamie Benn and left wing Brenden Morrow.
The Stars will also get Ribeiro back for Tuesday's game, although the plan is to ease him back as he will be playing for the first time in more than a month.
"I think Mike will play sparingly in the first game. We’ll kind of see where he’s at," said Crawford. "On the other side of it, we really like the way that Jamie Benn and Morrow, who he’s played with most of the year, have played together. We want to keep going with Jamie Benn at center. We think he’s playing just terrific hockey there and that allows us to ease Ribeiro back in the lineup, which is the way we probably should bring him back."
Ribeiro has missed the Stars' last 15 games after taking a stick to the throat in a January 6 game against the Rangers at Madison s Square Garden.
"I don't think I am 100 percent, but I think I am good enough to help the team," Ribeiro said after Monday's practice in Frisco.
Ribeiro's gone through some full practices over the past week, but the big test for him will come in actual game situations.
"I need to play to know where I am at and to see how I come out of it physically," he said. "I am sure I am not going to play 20 minutes (Tuesday). It's a hard team to play against and a hard building to play in after a month of not playing. It won't be easy. I'll need to play simple hockey and keep my shifts short."
Although Ribeiro is back, with Ott now sidelined and with Brian Sutherby still out with a shoulder injury, the Stars have called up right wing Ray Sawada and left wing Francis Wathier from the Texas Stars of the AHL. One of those two players will get into the lineup.
With Fistric out of the lineup, Jeff Woywitka will play his second straight game.
"He played really well coming in (Saturday)," Crawford said of Woywitka. "You could almost say he's a bit of a wildcat for us right now. He's very, very good at getting up on the play. It's been very energizing for our group."
Quotable
"It's huge. We haven't had much success on the road. We have a good feeling coming off a real good effort here at home. We'd like to take it on the road with us. We'd like to have that Olympic break feeling good about ourselves and set up for a good push down the stretch. Theses three games are key to set us up. If we get on a good run, we could be in the eighth spot by the time the week is over."
Stars captain Brenden Morrow on this week's three-game road trip that will take the team up to the Olympic break
