Things just got worse in Dallas and, on a personal note, my hockey pool took a significant hit. Stars captain and best player Brenden Morrow might be out for the rest of the NHL season.

Morrow suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee that will certainly require surgery. He is expected to be out as long as six months. The Stars organization believes that the 29-year-old forward will make a full recovery, but also believes this current NHL season to be shot and all but over with. Okay, so they didn’t say exactly that, but they might as well have.

“We are obviously very disappointed to hear the news about Brenden’s knee,” Stars GM Les Jackson said in a release. “As our captain, he will obviously be missed, but we have every assurance that he can and will come back from this injury at 100%. There is a lot of hockey left to be played this season, and we are confident our team will rally together and keep pushing.”

With Morrow really getting comfortable as a leader and as an offensive player, this injury couldn’t have had worse timing (if there ever is good timing for a torn ACL). His monstrous performance in the playoffs last year was the stuff of legends, as he was everywhere at once and buoyed the Stars through games and rounds they had no business getting through.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the Stars (in fact, they’re my second favourite team in the NHL behind my ‘Nucks). But even I can see, Don Cherry hate blinders on or not, that this is a team that is seriously screwed right now. Dallas currently sits in the basement of the Western Conference, which is a helluva fate considering where the team wound up at the end of last season. Sure, there’s plenty of hockey left to be played, but even the most blindly optimistic among us won’t place the squad for a playoff spot now….right?

Miracles do occur, of course, and some other Stars could step it up and break into the position. Perhaps, in the interim, the team should consider naming Marty Turco as the team captain in a Luongo-esque move and hope some of the magic dust rubs off. The 5-8-3 Turco could use a boost, as could the entire Stars team, and this Morrow situation won’t help the team at all. In fact, if there was a way they could reach below 15th in the West, they probably would.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 at 1:44 am and is filed under Dallas Stars, Injuries, NHL, NHL Notes, Players, Team Analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.