First Shift 🏒
On Friday, the Stars played a national television game that came with an 8:22 p.m. puck drop. They followed that with a matinee at home on Sunday with a 3:30 p.m. start time. Shortly after the game concluded, they flew to Utah where they will close out a back-to-back on Monday night.
It’s a challenge for the athletes, who try to be at peak form when the game starts, and therefore have to do a lot of adjusting during times like this.
“Yeah, you have to adjust,” said forward Jason Robertson. “Sometimes there’s a morning skate, sometimes there’s not, so you have to be ready. You’re probably not eating at a normal time, so you have to find that fine line. There’s a bit of a time change and you have to find your equilibrium.”
Robertson is one of the team’s most diligent users of video preparation, but because he does a lot of his review on the bench, he can fluctuate when the schedule changes. He can check things on the plane, he can check things in his hotel room, he can check things at the arena.
“Normally, I watch all of my shifts on the bench, but I like seeing them on the plane or watching them later,” he said. “It’s more on what I’m doing, so I can learn from that.”
Stars forward Tyler Seguin has been playing through some soreness and injury limitations, so he has not played on back-to-back nights this season. While coach Pete DeBoer has not confirmed a change, there is a good chance that Logan Stankoven (lower body) comes back into the lineup or the team goes with seven defensemen and 11 forwards because they have two healthy scratches on the blue line right now in Matt Dumba and Brendan Smith.
That’s part of the battle of back-to-backs. Seguin was asked if the NHL would consider “load management” the way the NBA does, and he frowned when the idea was broached.
“I think you can miss practices,” Seguin said. “But I think scoring 30 goals in this league is cool, and I think playing 82 games is almost like 30 goals.”
The Utah Hockey Club moved from Arizona this past summer, so this is the first trip for Dallas to Salt Lake City. That’s another challenge of playing in late night, afternoon, and back-to-back scenarios all bunched together. Utah is coming off a 6-0 win over Vegas on Saturday, so they will be well rested and feeling good. The Stars are expected to use goalie Casey DeSmith, who is coming off of two rough outings. He allowed six goals in a lopsided loss at Chicago on Wednesday, and Stars coach Pete DeBoer said the challenge is real for him.
“He’s got to dig in and find his game and we’ve got to play better around him, too,” DeBoer said.
That’s all part of surviving the schedule.
