Tyler Seguin spent three weeks nursing his injured right knee. Now he will have a month to get the Dallas Stars into the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Seguin was in the lineup Saturday as they faced the Tampa Bay Lightning. His return is nothing short of encouraging. Seguin is the team's leading scorer, even after his injury absence.
Stars coach Lindy Ruff was rightly cautious about Seguin, who was left with a knee sprain after a low hip check by the Florida Panthers' Dmitry Kulikov of Feb. 13.
The NHL banned Kulikov four games, but the Stars were the bigger loser. Seguin had 29 goals and 30 assists in 55 games when injured. Without him, the Stars went 3-5-2 and entered Saturday trying to climb back into the playoff field.
"I think sometimes coming off that injury is a tough one, the first few [games] back," Ruff said. "He's obviously a guy that can help us and we can use whatever help we can get."
Seguin made it back sooner than feared after the injury.
"My goal was to get on this trip," Seguin told reporters Thursday. "Right after the injury, they said five to seven weeks, four to six weeks or whatever. But I looked at this goal of three to three-and-half weeks. I reached that goal, and I am excited about that."
Missed? You bet the Stars felt Seguin's absence.
"You take your leading point-getter out of the lineup, and it does take something out of your team," Ruff told The Dallas Morning News this week. "Sometimes, you can get by with the emotions of guys getting elevated ice time, but at the same time his speed and his ability to finish on plays is something that in a couple of games we had good chances, but they weren't on the sticks of guys who could finish like him. It makes it tough."