The Dallas Stars will be without forward Tyler Pitlick for quite some time after he underwent surgery on his left wrist. Team reporter Mark Stepneski tweets that Pitlick’s status will be re-evaluated in eight weeks.
Pitlick, 27, is no stranger to major injuries having had several seasons in his short career end prematurely due to surgery. Last year saw him play 80 games for the Stars, a virtual miracle that resulted in a solid 14-goal, 27-point season. This year was supposed to be much of the same, but Pitlick could very well finish with just 43 games played and ten points. Eight weeks puts Pitlick out until almost the end of the season, at which point he would only be able to return if the Stars make the playoffs.
The fragile forward has one year remaining on his contract with a $1MM cap hit, but could find himself fighting for a job again next fall. The Stars need to find some more scoring from their bottom-six, and even with Pitlick’s physical contributions he just wasn’t putting the puck in the net often enough.
Like him as an energy guy and checking line forward but this is good for the Stars. It forces them to play Gurianov and Hintz. Dallas has a bad problem of deferring to veteran players and this helps in that regard.
I mostly agree… I’d agree with everyone except Pitlick being the one they’re having to move on from. I’d be sitting Spezza at this point in favor of Roope and Gurianov. Cog and Comeau (as much as I like them) would be seeing less and less ice time to the point I’d be trying anything and everything to trade Spezza, Cog, Comeau, Richie, Val and upper end picks for lower end picks and 1 or 2 2nd tier guys.
I realize it’s not NHL 19, it’s not going to be one deal of a bunch of mediocre guys, for one great guy, but a series of deals.