The Dallas Stars will be without two of their top players for the first part of the season, if not longer. Today the team announced that Ben Bishop underwent successful right knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus on October 21 and has been given a five-month recovery timeline. Tyler Seguin meanwhile underwent a right hip arthroscopy and labral repair yesterday and has been given a five-month recovery timeline.
Bishop, who will turn 34 later this month, had knee surgery in May that limited him to just three appearances in the postseason for Dallas. He’ll now be out until at least the end of March, another reason why the Stars re-signing of Anton Khudobin made so much sense.
There’s no question that Bishop is one of the best in the game when healthy and he showed it again this season with a .920 save percentage in 44 regular season appearances. The veteran goaltender has been a Vezina finalist three times and has one of the league’s best all-time save percentages at .921 (Dominik Hasek leads the way at .922). This knee injury is certainly troublesome though, especially given that Bishop has three years remaining on his current contract. His age is creeping up and this isn’t the first major injury of his career, so his recovery is not something to take for granted.
Seguin meanwhile represents a whole other issue for the Stars, given he’ll be out until April at this point. The team’s highest-paid player at $9.85MM per season, he can be a dynamic game-changing force when healthy and playing his best. Seguin recorded 50 points in 69 games this season for the Stars, his worst totals since he arrived in Dallas seven years ago.
With Seguin out of the lineup, the team will need a strong performance from captain Jamie Benn as well as big steps forward for youngsters Denis Gurianov and Roope Hintz. The Stars didn’t make any real additions to their forward group in free agency, meaning they’ll have to work around the injury with the group that got them to the Cup Final.
Trouble from the get go. Get well guys.