Thursday, September 18, 2008

Dallas Loses Top Two Defensemen

The Dallas Stars will be without the number one defenseman for about a month and their number two defenseman for a short period of time. Sergei Zubov will be out for 4 weeks after undergoing arthroscopic hip surgery on Thursday, which the Stars hope will get him back to 100%. Phillipe Boucher is currently suffering from a foot injury, which will keep him out of training camp on a day-to-day basis.

The Stars open their 2008/2009 season at home to the Blue Jackets on October 10th.  If Zubov was to return on October 18th, the Stars will only have played 4 games in the season, which isn't a great deal.  Barring no setbacks in his recovery, Zubov should be good to go again against the Avalanche at home.  He'll have to be conditioned again, which may have him on a slow start for a week or two, so there could be a eight game swing here altogether.  This should be taken into account when choosing him in your hockey pool draft.

Shutting down Phillipe Boucher in camp is the best case scenario for Dallas, making sure he is ready for October 10th.  Of course, he won't be the same guy that he would be if he went through the entire training camp, but you will have to assume that it won't hurt the blueliner's production from the backend, as it isn't a big number expected of him anyways.  You could probably take Boucher as you normally would.

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