BREAKING: Jamie Benn To Undergo Surgery For Collapsed Lung

BREAKING: Jamie Benn To Undergo Surgery For Collapsed Lung

Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] [Music] Welcome everybody to this DLS Stars emergency podcast as Jamie Ben, the Stars captain, is currently out. It would actually be good if we actually started this with the proper lighting. There we go. Jamie Ben is out for at least four weeks, probably more, with a collapsed lung that has since required surgery. I believe it was like slightly earlier today alongside Craig Lewig, Sean Shapiro, well, I should say Craig Lewig, somebody that has been picked to the bone, and Sam Nestler. I’m Owen Newkerk, and we’re glad to have you here. I wish it was under different circumstances. says, “Loods, you are in the Halloween spirit and the stars are going to do their own bit of disappearing acts for a while because their captain is not going to be available.” Let’s talk about the hit, then we’ll talk about the ramifications of it. Um, Jim Nil met with us. Sam and I were there as part of the media media contingency this morning. They had a morning skate for the game group that is flying to Minnesota this afternoon. They also had a non-game group that skated after that. We had to wait around a while because we were supposed to talk to Glenn Gulletin after the first skate and Gully got on the ice while we were still talking to Jim Nil. So then we had to wait, it was like another hour to talk to Gully. But we got both. So Sam, start with you. What was your initial impressions, thoughts of what Jim had to say about Jaime’s injury? Yeah. Well, first of all, uh, went through the tape a little bit. Could not find any sort of hit. I mean, Neil Jim Niel said it wasn’t a big hit. The only thing I found I posted on Twitter was just a little battle in the on the wall he had uh trying to protect the puck and then I think it was two shifts later his second to last shift he went out there for maybe 20 seconds before turning and and coming off kind of hunched over. Um so obviously sort of a freak accident sort of thing here. Uh nothing crazy that he took but um as we mentioned you know he went to the straight to the hospital after that after they got the X-rays inhouse. Luckily, we’re able to do a good job finding that small hole in the lung, get him to the hospital, and as you mentioned, he’s going through surgery. I think he’s probably out at this point. Um, you know, the first thing is is obviously for the health of of the captain, right? We we know this is not a young player. We know he’s coming into a big season where he may play an elevated role. It just it it always sucks to when someone is out with an injury, and it especially sucks when it’s something like this that just kind of comes out of nowhere. um he’s not going to be able to fly for for at least the four weeks. So, it does take away he’ll be able to be with the team here, but it does take away some of that aspect as well where you have your captain on the road on the plane in a lot of these areas where these guys are trying to get together. So, um that’s kind of the situation. Jim Nil laid it out. He said after that four weeks, uh they should be able to get right into skating and taking light contact if everything goes as expected. Luds, I like Sam went and looked at his shifts from the game Tuesday night in the third period against Minnesota as we were waiting for we had, you know, the second practice was an hour plus long, so I figured I’d try to go see it. There’s one play during that third period power play Sam’s talking about where there’s minimal contact, but it’s it’s nothing, right? It doesn’t look like they I know that things can happen out on the ice and sometimes they’re, you know, maybe don’t look like much and it turns into worse. Is this just a case of really bad luck for Ben? Yeah, it to to me it appears like one of those hits where you don’t think anything of it and then all of a sudden you go back and then you step back on the ice and you go, “Wait a second, something’s wrong here.” And you know, I and I’m not I’ve never had anything like that, so I don’t know. Obviously would have something to do with your breathing. you’re just not you’re not feeling right. So, I I I just think it’s something that um is one of those fluky kind of things that happens and and uh you know, you just hope that it’s short, you know, I mean, but again, it at least it’s at the beginning of the season. I mean, I guess you got to look for some of the right things here and you lose your captain, but and and you know, and again, if he’s not able to skate for a month, then how long does it take him to get up and ready? Great point. Yep. No, but but again, even if even if a guy Jamie Ben’s a obviously a veteran, you know, he’s been in the league for a long time. He knows what he needs to get ready. Maybe it ends up being a blessing in disguise at the end of it. If everything, you know, heals the way it’s supposed to heal and and he gets 30 games off and he, you know, ends up playing 50 games, maybe he’s going to be better off work come playoff time. Sean, you had an interesting comment to me earlier. I’d like you to share it with everybody in context of this particular injury. Now, I certainly have never played in the NHL, but I have gotten kicked in the ribs. It was back a few years ago by the heel of a skate. Somebody just fell down. The skate came up and hit me just underneath at the time Luds, those very wimpy Sherwood shoulder pads. I was wearing the white ones. You know what I’m talking about. And I went out and got much more substantial ones after that because they didn’t provide any protection. And the one thing I’ll say is that having a bruised rib, first of all, it’s a major pain in the ass because it takes all of six to eight weeks to heal. There’s nothing you can do about it. And you sneeze, you cough, you roll over in bed, all that. It hurts. But it’s the expansion of your lungs. So when you’re trying to recover after a, you know, a particularly fast shift where you’ve done a lot of skating, you’re breathing hard, you can’t because of the pain get that full inhale. And so recovery is a little bit harder. And maybe that’s something that Jamie felt as he was, you know, having shallower breaths. But but you have some interesting context, Sean, about other players that have actually played legitimate professional games, not just beer league or sevy skates. Yeah. And like the most recent example is the Rucker McGari example, 2023. Um November 17th, 2023, Rucker McGari playing playing for Michigan at the time. Rucker is now playing uh camp with the Penguins. actually think he’s actually hurt right now, but played eight games with Pittsburgh last year, 60 games in the AHL, but McGroy was on November 17th um playing for University of Michigan. Got stretched off the ice on a big hit. Um broken rib, rib punctured the lung, right? Much more like an actual moment that you could definitely everyone in the building saw unlike the Jamie incident on Tuesday. Um McGory was cleared to start skating about 3 weeks later roughly. Um, and I was there at the World Junior Camp in Plymouth, um, Plymouth, Michigan, where it was one of the long one of the the biggest questions about McGorardi was whether he’d be cleared to fly because they wanted him to be the captain of that team. And he actually ended up being the captain of that team, but the biggest question in camp was wasn’t whether Rucker McGory was going to be cleared to play hockey. It was whether he was going to be cleared to get on an airplane. And because World Junior that year was in Sweden, they even said to us like, “Hey, if World Junior was in North America this year, we could put him in a car and we could get him there, right?” But they did not know if he was going to be able to get on a plane um be cleared to fly in time. And so McGraordi was able to uh from November 17th, he was able to play in Sweden on December 26th that year. So that’s five weeks later. Um, now that’s a 20-year-old kid who’s trying to captain Team USA and is uh it’s his last opportunity at World Junior. So, probably pushing a little bit more than the Stars will push a 36 year a 36 year old with with a longer run. That’s kind of the timeline and the example I look at here where a much more severe injury initially for McGroy has him playing international hockey five weeks later and that one was with a fractured rib into the that punctured the lung. So even add the broken rib element on that one. So, I look at that kind of timeline here where Jaime Ben should be able to play by if if things if the surgery goes great today and everything like that based off outside evidence. It’s not crazy to say, “Hey, you could see Jamie Ben in the lineup by Halloween.” Now, is that the best decision or not? Probably the fastest, isn’t it? No, no, but I know. But the question is whether that’s the best decision or not, are two different things. Like, if this was something that was done in April, you’re like, “Okay, well, he we would see him by May 10th or whatever, right?” right? Like you would you would you would rush the timeline because it’s the playoffs. So, um that’s where I look at this like you first hear the word punctured lung and collapsed lung and all of that stuff and you think, “God, that’s life-threatening. You need to breathe to live and everything like that.” And this is going to be a hurdle for the Stars and it’s going to be something for them to get over. But the fact of the matter is he is there’s precedent here of players playing within five weeks of this. And I mean, we could see a world where I’m I’m not trying to be funny about this, and I want to be very clear. This is a very it’s a serious injury. I’m not trying to be funny about this, but there could be a world where Jaime could be cleared to play NHL hockey before he’s cleared to get on a plane, right? There could be a world where say it’s I I checked in with a medical person on this as well just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, but like there could be a world where you know what, it’s November 5th. You got to I don’t know have a star schedule right in front of me, but they could play a home game on November 5th and be on the road November 6th. Jamie could play in that game on November 5th, but he’s not allowed to get on a plane. like that that could be a reality of of of of if if if of if of if of if of if of if of if of if of if of if of if of of the timelines of how these work. It’s it’s a fascinating kind of injury because it’s not necessarily about the hockey clearance. It’s about the air travel clearance. And how many times have we heard Sam, you’ve been at camp all week. How many times have we heard the Stars have the toughest travel in the league? They’re on a plane a lot. So, all right, Sam, I want to ask you about the lineup implications. But before I do, Luds, because what Sean just said and but what you said earlier, if the uh Jim Nil said that he can’t do anything physical because this is these are his lungs for four weeks. Now, maybe it’ll be a little shorter than that. Uh Glenn Gullison joked to us when he was there that Jamie has a different timeline in his head than what the doctors told him, which kind of makes everybody chuckle. Unlike a broken lower body, foot, ankle, leg where you can do upper body stuff and try to do some hand bike or swimming or something to try to keep yourself in some order of shape or shoulder, broken hand, wrist, you can ride the bike, you can do lower body stuff even if you can’t do your upper body. This is one of those where there’s no physical activity. I would expect that it would take a while for him to get back up to conditioning after he gets cleared to start doing those things. Yeah, and that’s probably where the fact that he is a little bit of an older player that may take a little bit longer to recover after not doing anything for a month or six weeks or eight weeks, whatever it is. But again, I think Jaime’s kept himself in great shape over the course of his career. I know he works hard in the summer. He’s ready to go. You know, he was committed to this season, wanted to come back and kind of be a lot better than what he was last year. So, he’s put the work in. Um, yeah. But, but again, March Stone, Matthew Kachchuck, who who who really do you really care if Jaime Ben comes back in November or December? Let him get let him get his games in. Let him get 20 games in if that’s what it is before the playoffs start. Well, c can I also say this is you mentioned about a potential blessing in disguise and Sam can talk about some potential lineup filling filling in for on ice stuff, but I have been very vocal about and this team at Jamie is the undisputed leader of that team, but he takes up a lot of air in the room. He takes up a lot of space where that team needs the Miko Rantins of the world. It needs the Mir Hashkin of the world. It needs some of those guys to step up and fill some of that leadership to take some of that leadership void. Not because Jaime can’t handle it, but to take it off the pressure-wise so Jaime Ben can be kind of deescalate his role in the lineup. Right. That is kind of my I’ve been very vocal about that. Couple minutes left, so I got to jump in real quick. Sean Sam, lineup implications. What does this mean for the next four preseason games? Suddenly it feels like there’s a job open. Yeah, I mean we we talked about the roster was pretty much set. Even Glen Goldson said that. So now you look at a position that wasn’t very deep anyway on the left wing. Uh and you’re you’re taking out one of your pieces already. That was probably already going to have to play out the lineup a little bit. So uh the interesting part that Glenn talks about and he he seems to be adamant about it. He does not care what hand you shoot with. If you are a right-handed shot and you say you can play the left, he wants to put you there. He’ll said he said he’d put everyone on their left on their off side because of the way they want to play and cut to the middle of the ice. But realistically, if you’re looking at the players that are have an opportunity, Justin Ritzovian and Adam Merie step up in my mind. Um Ernie on the on the PTO, Ritzovian we know has been right there. That’s a huge opportunity because while this might be, as Sean said, maybe Ben’s back by by Halloween and this isn’t a long time thing, you got a big chance here. You don’t just have three preseason games to show what you can do at this level. you now have opening nights and road trips and games against Stanley Cup contenders to show that you belong so that when Ben comes back, let’s say Ben comes back at November 1st and the team’s fully healthy, you might get sent down, but you’re the next one up if you impressed. And I think that’s the way to look at it. So those guys to me have a clear head. Cole Lind, Arch Huru kind of in the mix as well, but I would look at those two for who has the best shot at making it. And Ernie’s going to get a shot on the top line tonight against Minnesota. LS, we have less than 60 seconds here. We’ll talk more about this in our pregame show tonight. If you looked at the guys available, is it going to be somebody that’s already part of that initial NHL 13 forwards that steps in or does Ernie or Ritz Kovian or somebody else have a chance to jump leaprog into that spot? I think the door is wide open. This isn’t like you’re looking for a top six forward because in reality, I think the best case scenario for everybody, Jamie probably would have been down on that third line, right? That third line left wing. So to me that opens up the door to a lot of these guys because it’s not like you’re trying to f find somebody that’s got to play with Wyatt or play with Robo, you know what I mean? Like it it’s someone that is is more going to get your 12 minutes a night, 12 to 14 minutes a night if that. And maybe that maybe now that puts Sam Sam Steel up the line again, you know? Who knows? We’ll see what happens. I the I’m glad Sam used the word opportunity because this morning when this happened again, you know, Ow, and I’ve talked about why we don’t ever take games off and what it does opens up the door for for somebody else to take your job. And right now, there’s there’s a job available for at least a short period of time. All right, guys. Pregame show tonight, 6:30 Central time. Stars Wild from Minnesota. We’ll get you ready. We’ll talk more about this and we’ll watch the game tonight for Sean Luds and Sam Owen. Thanks for joining us on our mini pod or emergency pod. [Music] [Applause] We all sitting like the mayor.

BREAKING NEWS: Jamie Benn will undergo surgery for a collapsed lung. We dive into what this means for the Dallas Stars, and how it impacts the lineup. Don’t miss the full breakdown!