DENVER – Tyler Seguin’s new haircut seems to have helped him regain his marker touch.
“It’s like I found my mojo again,” said the Dallas Stars forward on Friday, the day after his team’s 5-3 victory against the Colorado Avalanche in Game 2 of their second round series in the Western Conference, during which he hit the target. “I feel like I’m playing good hockey. I got tons of chances, but I wasn’t rewarded, I wasn’t scoring. »
This drought finally ended, and Seguin scored three times in his last three games. His contribution helped the Stars come within one win of eliminating the Avalanche in their best-of-7 series, with Game 5 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS ).
Whether it’s because of the Longueuil Cup that is now proudly displayed, or simply that the puck has finally started to go into the net, because that’s what eventually happens when the chances are there, Seguin is doing excellent work.
“I liked the game of “Seggy” throughout the year. I think this line has been excellent for most of the season,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said Saturday about Dallas’ third line where Seguin plays on right wing, Mason Marchment on left and Matt Duchene In the center.
“As is the case with all lines, sometimes more difficult times arise, and he experiences ups and downs. But when you look at the big picture and what he’s accomplished all season, you see he’s been excellent, and that line has been excellent. »
Seguin had 52 points (25 goals, 27 assists) in 68 regular season games, but he failed to score in the first round against the Vegas Golden Knights, and was limited to three mentions of assist in seven games.
“In the first round, I don’t know how many chances and shots I got, or breakaways that I didn’t make,” Seguin said before the Stars’ 5-1 victory in Game 4 on Monday. “I’m starting to take advantage of these chances right now. When the puck doesn’t go into the net, you have to keep trying, and when it starts to work, you try to make the most of it. »
His Stars teammates were convinced it was only a matter of time before he broke through, and they were right. Seguin scored twice in a 4-1 win in Game 3 on Saturday.
” That’s great. “That’s what we all wanted,” said Stars forward Wyatt Johnston. As a player, we mainly want to get chances, and for him, that has never been a problem. He generated a lot of scoring chances. It’s good to see he’s starting to enjoy it.
“It seems that for this kind of thing, there is always a swing back, and when you get chances, you know that it will eventually work out, you just have to continue on the same path. We know that eventually, we will score in sequences. »
Seguin’s patience has been tested in recent years. He played through a torn hip labrum during the 2020 playoffs, as the Stars reached the Stanley Cup Final but lost in six games to the Tampa Bay Lightning. He then underwent an arthroscopy on his right hip and a labrum repair on November 2, 2020. During his recovery from this procedure, he also had surgery on his right knee.
He only played three games in 2020-21, a season which was shortened to 56 games due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During an interview with LNH.com in October 2022, Seguin said he told a friend on January 26, 2021: “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to play again.”
“He’s at a different point in his career, and I think the injuries he’s had have given him a different perspective,” DeBoer said. As we get older in our career, we realize that we’re not going to play forever and that time passes.
“He is one of the players in our locker room who has already won the Stanley Cup (with the Boston Bruins in 2011), but he did it at such a young age (19). He wants to lift her again. He is in a very good state of mind, and he is another player who is very useful to the team, because he has left his ego aside. »
The 32-year-old forward has become something of a big brother to some of the Stars’ younger players, including Johnston and Logan Stankoven, both 21, and defenseman Thomas Harley, 22. Seguin called Johnston a “puppy” in an interview recently. When a question was asked of Seguin and Stankoven after Game 3, Seguin gave the floor to Stankoven, saying “go ahead, youngster,” and gave him a pat on the back as they left the podium. .
“He has obviously been playing here in Dallas for a long time (11 seasons) and he is one of the veterans of the team that has played the most games, both in season and in the playoffs,” noted Johnston. For young players like me, to be able to turn to him, hear what he has to say, but also see how he behaves and plays, it’s great. He is an excellent leader. »
Everything is going well for Seguin, both in hockey and in his life. He married his girlfriend Kate Kirchof in July in the Bahamas, and he joked after Game 3 that his Longueuil Cup represented “a test for my wife to see if she really loves me, and it seems like yeah, so that’s great. »
There have been many ups and downs, but everything seems to be working for Seguin at the moment, and he says he has “no doubt” that he has a different perspective on almost everything today.
“As the years go by, and it seems like they go by faster and faster. We hear it often, but until we experience it, we don’t really believe it. We think we’re going to be lucky to win so often.
“The most important thing is not to have regrets. You have to be able to go through the off-season by telling yourself that you did everything you could and that you gave it your all. It can happen that we go through a bad streak, that we are the victim of bad luck. Sometimes these are things beyond our control, but we just have to keep in mind that we have to do everything in our power in these moments to be able to appreciate them, because they are often very pleasant to experience. »
