Guerin Nearly Set to Retake Wing

The Dallas Stars again were without their top winger Thursday night, Bill Guerin sitting out Game 1 against the Mighty Ducks because of a thigh injury that has sidelined the club’s third-leading scorer for nearly two months.

Guerin, however, is expected to return to the lineup any day now, perhaps as early as Game 2 on Saturday.

“Sometime this series,” he said. “I’m not sure which game. It could be 2, 3, I don’t know. It’s kind of a day-to-day thing now.”

Guerin -- who led the Stars with 11 power-play goals and was third in points, goals and shots after signing a five-year, $45-million contract as an unrestricted free agent last summer -- said that he and Coach Dave Tippett talk every day “and we just want to make sure it’s the right time.

“We don’t want to take somebody out of the lineup that’s been playing well. We want to make sure we’re doing what’s best for the team, at the right time. That might be putting me in the lineup one night; that might be keeping me out one night. We’re not so sure. But I do know that I will play [in this series].”

Guerin, one of the NHL’s premier power forwards, had two goals and two assists for a season-high four points in a 4-2 victory over the Ducks on Oct. 11 in his first game with the Stars at American Airlines Center.

Five months into the season, he had 25 goals and 25 assists in helping the Stars to the best record in the Western Conference.

But he sat out the last 18 games of the regular season and the Stars’ six-game first-round series against the Edmonton Oilers after suffering a crushed right thigh muscle in a collision during a Feb. 27 game at Ottawa.

He underwent several medical procedures, even having the muscle opened and drained for a number of days in order to prevent it from hardening because of calcification. On April 1, after his leg stiffened, doctors twisted it back and forth to break up the built-up scar tissue. An intense rehabilitation followed.

“Every day he gets a little better,” Tippett said. “Now one of these days we’re just going to say, ‘You know what? It’s time, Bill,’ and we’re going to move forward.

“He’s working very hard and he seems to be very comfortable out there starting to do things. Something about this injury is mental and physical, where you just have to overcome some drawbacks that you think you might have.”

Two or three weeks ago, Guerin said, he still questioned whether he’d be able to return at all this season.

“But we’ve put a lot of time in, a lot of hard work,” he said, “and things have really taken a turn for the better over the last couple weeks....

“I’ve been making strides every day. My conditioning’s been better every day. Strength in my whole body’s been better. My endurance, everything gets better every day, I feel. My confidence is growing.

“We’re in a position now where if I had to play, I definitely could.”

The Stars aren’t so sure.

“If you see him out there, the stuff he’s doing [in practice], there are a lot of things you look at and you say, ‘What’s wrong with him?’ ” Tippett said. “There are still some little things that when you jump into a playoff game, they happen real quick.

“But he’s very close and we continue to monitor him every day.”