TORONTO — The Stars goaltending depth took another hit this week.
Stars goaltender Anton Khudobin underwent “a right hip arthroscopy and labral repair” on Monday in New York, the team announced on Tuesday morning. The surgery ended Khudobin’s season, and gave him a six-month recovery timeline for returning to game action.
Khudobin is currently on AHL affiliate Texas’ roster, and had not played a game since Jan. 29.
“It’s just wear and tear over the years,” Stars general manager Jim Nill said. “It started to really bother him around January, and just got worse and worse.”
Khudobin’s surgery was done by Dr. Bryan Kelly, the same surgeon who did Tyler Seguin’s hip surgery in Nov. 2020. If Khudobin follows the six-month timeline, he should be ready to play around the time training camp starts in the fall.
Nill said the injury affected Khudobin’s performance this season, when he struggled in nine NHL games to a .879 save percentage and 3.63 goals against average. The Stars waived him in December, and he played six AHL games for Texas.
The Stars looked into placing Khudobin on long-term injured reserve — which would have provided them with $2.208 million in cap relief — but could not since Khudobin was in the minors. Even since Khudobin last played in January, he backed up for Dallas on Feb. 1 before he was reassigned to Texas.
“We tried the first option which was doing some cortisone shots, managing it,” Nill said. “It got to a point where he was struggling to play. It was really bothering him.”
Without Khudobin, the once-deep Stars are now without goaltending depth.
But Braden Holtby is hurt, as a lower-body injury will keep him out Tuesday against the Maple Leafs. It is the eighth game this season Holtby has missed due to a lower-body injury, though he did participate in morning skate in Toronto.
In December, Ben Bishop’s attempted comeback ended due to a chronic knee injury. Now, Khudobin’s season is over after hip surgery. The culmination of all the injuries meant that Adam Scheel received his first NHL recall last week, and will back up Oettinger on Tuesday in Toronto.
When the Stars had a goalie surplus, it looked as if they could use it to address other parts of their roster. Perhaps they could move Khudobin to clear cap space. Or maybe Holtby would be available to bolster another team’s depth in the crease. But Nill made it clear that his goalies weren’t going anywhere.
“I see all these rumors out there, and I would say a third of them maybe have substance,” Nill said. “We were never doing anything anyways with our goaltending. It’s not like I was out there shopping my goalies. I was doing it earlier, but then when Dobby [was hurt] in January, we understood where things were at.”
Khudobin’s health should factor into what the Stars do over the summer in the crease.
Holtby will be an unrestricted free agent, and the Stars will have to sign Oettinger to a new contract.
Oettinger should be the starter in the fall, but who is the backup? Do the Stars want Holtby back? Can they trust Khudobin to be an NHL caliber backup after major surgery? Does Scheel need more seasoning in the AHL? UFAs like Ville Husso, Scott Wedgewood and Anton Forsberg will be available. Do they make sense?
Heiskanen update: Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen is not on the team’s current four-game road trip, as he is sidelined indefinitely by mononucleosis. He has not played since March 2 against the Kings, and last practiced with the team March 8 in Nashville during morning skate.
“He’s feeling better, getting there,” Nill said. “It’s a process, we’ve got to watch his spleen. He’s getting ultrasounds of his spleen. He’s doing pretty good. I just got a text from the doctor, said he’s looking good.”
Without Heiskanen available, the Stars activated Andrej Sekera from LTIR to give the team a seventh defenseman on the roster in case of injuries or illnesses elsewhere on the blue line. Sekera has not played since Jan. 28.
By taking Sekera off LTIR, the Stars ate up most of their cap space, and currently have just $50,000 available. If the Stars placed Heiskanen on LTIR, they could create $8.45 million in cap space, but they would need to have $8.45 million available to activate him should he return during the regular season.
