Stars’ Capobianco out four weeks with lower-body injury, Steel returns to lineup
The Dallas Stars got confirmation on a couple players’ statuses, as defenseman Kyle Capobianco will miss four weeks with a lower-body injury, while Sam Steel is officially returning to the lineup for Thursday’s game against the Montreal Canadiens.
Capobianco sustained the injury during the Stars’ 5-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday. Early in the third period, he took a hit from Timo Meier, and was limping off the ice with a likely leg injury. He did not return to the game.
Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan initially said that Capobianco was out at least a week, but wouldn’t be out as long as six-to-eight weeks. But as we now know, the timeline was closer to the latter than the former. The injury comes during a lighter portion of the Stars’ schedule, as four weeks would only cause Capobianco to miss 12 games.
Capobianco has been in and out of the lineup as a healthy scratch to start the season, as he’s played just five of their 12 games. He has no points in those five games.
Steel has missed the last two games with an undisclosed issue. Not much is known about his absence aside from that he received a treatment injection on Sunday.
Steel has produced close to his usual pace, as he has one goal and two assists for three points in 10 games on the season.
Steel is set to return to the lineup on the top line alongside Wyatt Johnston and Mikko Rantanen. That trio has outscored the competition 15-8 and has a 53.71% 5v5 expected goal share in 303:03 of ice time together since Rantanen’s arrival in Dallas two years ago, according to Natural Stat Trick.
The Stars may also get a few more returns to their lineup in the next few days, as Radek Faksa, Esa Lindell and David Perron could return in the next couple days. Faksa and Lindell have missed the last two and four games respectively with a lower-body injury, while Perron has been getting up to game speed after signing a one-year, $850,000 contract two weeks ago.
The Stars currently sit in third in the Central Division with a 7-4-1 record. They’ll look to bounce back from their lost to the Devils when they host the Canadiens on Thursday at 7 p.m. CT.
