Seguin goes down with potentially horrific consequences, Hossa scores again, Teravainen demoted and more…

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Update: Both Seguin and Eaves have been placed on IR retroactive to yesterday. As such, each will have to miss at least a week.

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Happy Valentine’s Day folks. Remember to set your lineups extra early today because of the matinee game between the Oilers and Senators. If you’re smart you’ll take your loved one out for some nice afternoon festivities to skip that dreadful contest and free yourself up for a good evening of hockey. If not and you miss tonight’s action your reward is a dope matinee game tomorrow between the Blackhawks and Penguins.

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A really key shutout win for Kari Lehtonen and the Stars was spoiled by a low hipcheck on Tyler Seguin by Dmitri Kulikov that knocked the star forward out of the game and could cost him some time, maybe even the rest of the season. I'm assuming we won't know for sure until there's an MRI but I'd suggest that at best we are looking at 4-6 weeks with some sprained ligament(s).

That's a game-changer right there. We are talking about the third leading scorer in the league on one of the top offensive teams in the league. Obviously that alters things for Seguin owners but it'll impact things for Jamie Benn owners, as well as those who have John Klingberg, Trevor Daley, Jason Spezza, etc.

I want to believe that Spezza still has top line talent within him but it's actually been a few years since he was a legit #1 center as Kyle Turris took many of those duties from Spezza his last couple of years in Ottawa. Perhaps we see Cody Eakin emerge as a legit option down the stretch.

This also affects a depth guy like Erik Cole who'd been clicking on the second line with Spezza having scored 17 points in his past 20 games. Now Cole might be looking at a weaker centerman as Spezza gets shuffled up. That's how it goes when you shake the foundation.

Naturally, the already mediocre power play (ranked 18^th at 17.6%) takes a huge hit losing its leading goal (eight) and point (22) producer. They might feel this the most because a good deal of that power play was built around Seguin's ability to rip the one-timer.

We should also mention that Seguin wasn't the only Star forward who went down in this one. Patrick Eaves took a puck to the head leaving the game and Ales Hemsky went down with a lower-body injury. These latter two are neither surprising (because both Eaves and Hemsky enjoy Band-Aid Boy status) nor overly impactful but when taken as a whole that's an entire line of top-six players the Stars just lost. Whether or not Eaves or Hemsky is actually that talented anymore is irrelevant. This is how the Stars were using them.

There will be opportunities for youngsters like Brett Ritchie (read more on him here) and Curtis MacKenzie (read more on him here) but that's little consolation when a player of this calibre goes down. Fingers crossed it ain't as bad as it seemed.

It's worth mentioning that a serious injury to Seguin likely alters their plans for the trade deadline. They already made a move earlier this week for backup Jhonas Enroth and probably were working on another addition or two to help improve their low playoff chances. Can't see them chasing a playoff spot with the same vigor if Seguin is down for an extended period.

Like I said, Lehtonen's big game was overshadowed. His 37-save shutout was his first since New Year's Eve. It was also his third win in a row a big step for a goalie at risk of losing starts to new acquisition Enroth.

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Kulikov was given a match-penalty for his low check and could face more discipline here. One thing I know is that he has suddenly become a marked man for fantasy poolies. Not only has he failed to live up to his hype/potential but now he's taking out legitimate stars? Damn you, Dmitri!

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