Three Possible Reasons the Dallas Stars Put Tyler Seguin on Injured Reserve Today
Today, the Stars announced that Tyler Seguin had been put on Injured Reserve as of December 1st.
Pete DeBoer said this morning in Utah that Seguin stayed behind in Dallas to “get evaluated” with a lower body concern. Logan Stakoven will be returning to the lineup tonight in Seguin’s place (though what line he’ll play on isn’t absolutely clear), while Justin Hyrckowian was called up from the Texas Stars, presumably as an extra forward in case someone else gets dinged up on the road trip.
But this isn’t entirely surprising, given that over a month ago, DeBoer told the media in Finland that Seguin had something that “flared up” when he played two games in two nights, hence his being scratched for the second game in Tampere.
The impact on one of the best lines in the NHL is going to be felt, even if the Stars do have options when it comes to who plays right wing next to Duchene. Some options include Mavrik Bourque, who has played there before during an earlier absence of Seguin’s this year; Evgenii Dadonov, who has played everywhere before; or Logan Stankoven, who has the skill to play right wing on any line on the team, in my view. But whatever the approach, there’s no denying that Seguin’s absence will be a significant one for the Stars, however long it lasts.
Seguin has 20 points in 19 games during his remarkable start to the season. He’s third on the team in points, and fourth in goals, despite not playing on the primary power play unit. And he’s done all this while managing an injury that, according to sources I’ve spoken with this year, was always going to need to be addressed at some point.
The question now is whether this IR stint will be a short one, or whether it means a longer recovery time for Seguin. It’s notable, I think, that DeBoer hasn’t pointed to any particular injury Seguin suffered against Winnipeg yesterday. So, the guess here is that this IR stint isn’t out of the blue, or a response to a recent injury. That is just a guess, but call it an educated one.
At practice a couple days ago, Seguin simply said this when Mike Heika asked him about managing his body this year: “It’s definitely going to be one of the most interesting years of my career I would say. Hopefully, at the end of the day, it’s with the big, shiny thing at the end.” He also ended that same availability by answering a question about load management in the NHL with the phrase, “if the foot fits in the boot, you should play. That’s been my motto.”
I’m not going to read into that statement too much, for now. And besides, it’s often more interesting to think about what veterans don’t say than to try and squeeze meaning out of what they do.
So while we’ll continue to do our best here at Stars Thoughts to investigate and report, I did want to run over three hypothetical scenarios I’ve considered, just to give an overview of what could be going on behind the scenes, if indeed the Stars had planned to make this move right now all along.
To be clear: these are all hypotheticals, not reporting. I’m sure there are other possibilities, and I know there are facts I don’t have yet. But as always, when I know enough to report, you’ll be the first to hear about it, unless I like, see your neighbor in Bread Zeppelin and tell them first.
Okay, let’s consider three possibilities:
Hypothetical #1: The first (and most likely to be speculated) possible reason Dallas could be putting Seguin on IR right now could be because they want him to be healthy for the playoffs, but they also want to use his cap hit to acquire other players in the meantime. Thus, they could be planning to move him to LTIR (Long-Term Injured Reserve) at some point after getting another evaluation in Dallas this week, and whatever procedure they think he might need will take roughly the remaining 59 games in the season for him to recover from.
In other words: the Stars could have known for a while know that Seguin would need a procedure at some point, and this timing simply gives them the most flexibility, with Seguin projected to be back in time to be healthy for the playoffs, but with Dallas also able to use his cap space to add additional help in the meantime, much like Vegas and other NHL teams in the past have done.
The key thing here is that, with a move to LTIR, the Stars would be able to exceed the salary cap up to the amount of Seguin’s $9.85 million cap hit, minus the cap space they had on the day they moved him to LTIR. In most cases where a player will be out all season, that means it’s to a team’s advantage to get as close to the cap as possible before moving a player to LTIR. With the Stars’ recall of Hyrckowian, I believe they’ll be just a few hundred thousand dollars away from the cap, giving them well over $9 million in space to work with, should they make that move this week, and should Seguin end up not being able to come back during the season. There’s no point speculating about how they might use that space just yet, but it would certainly be a large enough amount of money to make a significant move if Jim Nill wants to do so.Hypothetical #2: The second possible reason Dallas could be putting Seguin on IR right now is because it’s been tougher for him to recover from games than they thought, so they’re going to see if there’s a way to do a more minor procedure with a shorter recovery time that will make it easier for him to manage the issue. In this hypothetical scenario, the Stars are hoping to address the issue now so that Seguin can come back as soon as possible.
Sean Shapiro (you may have heard of him) wrote today in a piece you should absolutely read that there has been an internal debate about how to address Seguin’s injury, so the fact that they haven’t gone to LTIR immediately could suggest that it’s not entirely black and white just yet.
Doing a more minor procedure would allow the Stars to explore every possibility before going the LTIR route, though such a route would still be a possibility if Seguin returns from this hypothetical lower-body procedure, and it becomes apparent he will need to get work done that will necessitate a much longer recovery. In other words, the Stars may have initially thought scratching Seguin on back-to-backs would be enough to get him through the year, but it’s become apparent the issue is getting worse, so this is the next step before making a bigger decision that would take the better part of the season for Seguin to recover from.Hypothetical #3: The third (and least likely, in my opinion) reason Dallas could be putting Seguin on IR right now is because everything is still the same, and they’re still planning to get him through the season and playoffs before having a more significant procedure done in the offseason. In other words, this could just be a short stint to give him some extra recovery time, and to see if that sort of longer layoff could be a model for preparing for the playoffs, for example.
This scenario is unlikely to me for a couple of reasons. First, because Seguin (like most hockey players) is always going to try to play through anything, and he’s certainly been one of the Stars’ most important players this season despite dealing with what must be a painful issue the entire time. To see what Seguin has done so far, one would expect he would want to stay the course until his foot literally couldn’t fit in the boot, to quote him from the other day.
The other reason I don’t lean in this direction right now is because the Stars could easily have scratched Seguin for the Utah game as DeBoer had said they would for all back-to-backs, then placed him on the IR retroactively depending on how he felt with a couple of extra days off. The IR move suggests a degree of certainty about future plans rather than a touch-and-go sort of approach.
So, there you go. Feel free to leave a comment if you think I’m way off base. I’m always happy to be proven wrong if it means I learn something. Well, maybe “happy” isn’t the right word, but you get the idea.