FRISCO, Texas (AP) — Dallas Stars defenseman Nils Lundkvist walked into the room Monday without even a bandage covering the deep cut he has from taking a skate to the left side of his face during their playoff series against Minnesota.
“It looked way worse than it is. I got not too many stitches, just deep cut,” Lundkvist said when speaking to reporters for the first time since the scary bloody scene in Game 4 nine days earlier. “I was pretty lucky
in an unlucky moment.”
Lundkvist spoke during the Stars' season-ending availability, when top-line center Roope Hintz revealed that he tore his left hamstring in two places. Hintz hadn't played since getting hurt March 6, his only game for the Stars since the Olympics.
Mikko Rantanen didn't want to get into details of the lower-body injury he sustained during the Olympics, where he played with Hintz for bronze medal-winning Finland. But Rantanen did get back for 10 games at the end of the regular season and the playoffs, when he had one goal and six assists against Minnesota.
This is the first time in four seasons that the Stars didn't advance to the Western Conference final. They were instead done after one round, eliminated after a Game 6 loss in Minnesot a last Thursday.
Lundkvist still has a visible small gash near his temple not far from his left ear.
On the play where he got hurt in that loss April 25, Lundkvist was called for a tripping penalty. As Michael McCarron tumbled over, the Wild forward’s skate inadvertently caught Lundkvist in the face, and he was bleeding badly when going off the ice.
The Stars just before the start of the playoffs announced a two-year, $3.5 million contract for Lundkvist through the 2027-28 season.
Hintz tore his hamstring when he got tangled up with Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon along the boards during that game March 6. Hintz had missed the Stars' first four games after the Olympics because of illness before returning to the lineup that night.
While Hintz was getting closer to playing again, he and coach Glen Gulutzan both indicated the center wouldn’t have been ready for the start of the second round had the Stars advanced.
“I was getting there," Hintz said. “It was a lot of rehabbing and stuff like that, and then I was getting close, and I kind of re-injured it again a little bit.”
As for the play on which he injured the hamstring, Hintz described it as a battle for the puck when he “kind of overstretched it or something, and then it just popped. I don't know what really happened there.”
Hintz had reached at the back of his left leg and put no weight on his leg while being helped off the ice.
Rantanen missed the Stars' first 15 games after the Olympics before returning March 28.
“It's unfortunate because I was feeling really good before the Olympics. ... Coming back at the end of regular season, I didn’t feel like I got to the level where I was probably before Olympics," Rantanen said.
“He was injured for a long, long period of time and it’s hard to get on a moving train,” Gulutzan said. “He had a significant injury. Was he healthy? Yep, he worked hard to get back earlier than expected. ... Medically, yeah, he was healthy, but he was playing catch-up.”
Veteran forward Tyler Seguin played only 27 games before surgery in December to repair the ACL in his right knee. That was after the 34-year-old Seguin had missed the majority of the 2024-25 season because of hip surgery before returning for their playoff run last season.
Seguin said Monday that the nine-month timeline he was given for his ACL recovery would be right around the start of training camp.
“So that's my goal,” he said. “I feel deep down I’ll be as strong as ever.”
___
AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
