The Dallas Stars will be without Vernon Fiddler for this coming week because of an upper-body injury, head coach Lindy Ruff announced on Monday.
Ruff doesn’t expect the rock-solid two-way center to miss a ton of time, but he did say that the 33-year-old will be re-evaluated at the end of this week to see where he’s at.
The Stars moved young forward Cody Eakin into Fiddler’s spot between Antoine Roussel and Ryan Garbutt after Fiddler was injured on Saturday.
Dallas has been hit hard by injuries lately, especially to the Stars’ defense. Nasty spills leave Stephane Robidas sidelined for four-to-six months while Trevor Daley is week-to-week. Even top-line forward Tyler Seguin missed some time with a concussion before returning last week.
You won’t hear Ruff complaining about it, though.
“Every team deals with it,” Ruff said. “Early on we didn’t deal with a lot and now we’ve dealt with two pretty serious ones on the backend. It doesn’t look like Fidds will be a long time, so it’s something we’ve got to get through, other guys have to elevate their play and fill bigger holes.”