Stars young defenseman out for season

It’s a busy Saturday in Dallas. The team announced that defenseman Kyle Capobianco has been assigned to AHL Texas, while blueliner Christian Kyrou and winger Kyle McDonald from AHL Texas.  To make room on the roster, winger Mason Marchment was placed on injured reserve.  The team then revealed that defenseman Nils Lundkvist has undergone season-ending shoulder surgery and that he and Tyler Seguin have been placed on LTIR.

Capobianco made his season debut on Friday and struggled early in his first taste of NHL action in two years. However, the 27-year-old has been quite productive with Texas, tallying 28 points in 35 games. Capobianco may be back with the big club pretty quickly, depending on how the back end of these roster moves plays out.

It’s the first regular season recall for both Kyrou and McDonald.  On the surface, they may be short-lived, as those moves were likely made to optimize their LTIR placements.  Kyrou scored 13 points in 26 games with Texas professionally in his sophomore year.  McDonald, meanwhile, has just five points in 31 appearances, a significant drop after picking up 26 points in 51 outings last season.

Marchment has been out since late December due to a facial injury. Assuming the Stars filed the paperwork to make his placement retroactive, he can be activated anytime. He is believed to be aiming to return before the upcoming break, so he might not be out for much longer. He was off to a strong start before the injury, with 12 goals and 15 assists in his first 33 outings.

As for Lundkvist, he missed the last week and a half with an upper-body injury, which we now know was a shoulder issue.  His season ends on a pretty quiet note as he finishes with five assists, 34 blocks, and 23 hits in 39 games while averaging just over 15 minutes a night.  He joins blueliner Miro Heiskanen on the shelf as Dallas’ defensive depth starts to get tested.

The 24-year-old is slated to become a restricted free agent with arbitration rights this summer. He’ll be owed a $1.25M qualifying offer. Dallas declined to tender him last summer when the qualifier was only $874K to avoid giving him arbitration rights, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they went that route again if a deal can’t be reached before the end of June.

Seguin, meanwhile, underwent hip surgery back in December, a procedure that carried an expected recovery timeline of four to six months, although it’s expected he won’t be back until the playoffs.

Accordingly, by placing him and Lundkvist on LTIR, Dallas can exceed the cap by up to the amount of their cap hits minus any remaining regular cap room at the time of placement.  (Kyrou and McDonald’s recalls allow them to reduce that regular cap room as much as possible to maximize how much LTIR space they have). Dallas should have somewhere around $11M in full-season contracts that they can add between now and the March 7th trade deadline, making the Stars a team to watch for in the coming weeks.