With the regular season complete, NHL teams are now free to call up reinforcements going into the playoffs. The Dallas Stars announced that they called up Lian Bichsel, Alexander Petrovic and Ben Kraws.
Bichsel and Petrovic were sent down to the AHL to make room on the roster for Tyler Seguin, who was returning from hip surgery after not playing since the beginning of December.
It is very apparent that the Stars need as much depth as they can get with injuries all season but those to role players such as Miro Heiskanen and now Jason Robertson. However, even with the absence of Heiskanen, the Stars still have seven healthy defenseman: Thomas Harley, Esa Lindell, Ilya Lyubushkin, Matt Dumba, Cody Ceci, Brendan Smith and Bichsel.
With the return of Heiskanen, the Stars would have eight defenseman, not including Petrovic. It is unclear if the coaching staff are being overly cautious and would like an extra body given the way the season has gone for the Stars or if they are considering mixing up the defensive pairings going into Round 1.
Last season during the playoffs, Petrovic was put in over Nils Lundkvist after Lundkvist lost the trust of the coaching staff. Petrovic made seven appearances in Dallas' Western Conference run. Petrovic did not record any points and had an average time on ice of 12:02.
Today at practice the defensive pairings went as follows:
Lindell-Ceci
Harley-Lyubushkin
Bichsel-Petrovic
Extras: Dumba and Smith
Kraws was called up from the Idaho Steelheads. He has played 40 games in Idaho and tallied a .910% with a goals-against average of 2.88. Kraws joined the Texas Stars last season after his last season in the NCAA at St. Lawrence University. He signed a one-year entry level contract last March.
The Stars are slated to take on the Colorado Avalanche tomorrow night at the American Airlines Center at 8:30 CST.
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