Fading Star

It took about 48 hours for the Dallas Stars and Eric Lindros to hammer out a final deal, but after a weekend of speculation, the Big E is heading to the Big D. Lindros's '05-'06 campaign was cut short due to a wrist injury, but was still able to record 11 goals and 11 assists in his shortened season.

Now, the deal is for $1.55M for a year with incentives that could make it worth about $2.5M. I'm not saying that's too much for an injury proned center, I'm just thinking that it could be a little risky in the grand scheme of things. Granted, two big names are no longer with the Stars in Bill Guerin and Jason Arnott, but I don't think that getting Lindros over, say, someone like Anson Carter is a hockey or business decision. Of course, it's easy for me to be the arm-chair GM.

Regardless, it seems that GM Doug Armstrong is very happy with having Lindros in a Stars uniform. Yet, the thing I find odd is that a guy who has had several head and arm injuries would be willing to go to the Western Conference with some of the biggest hitters in the games. Guys like Chris Pronger, Dion Phaneuf, Jason Smith, and Rob Blake are going to be out there, more often than not, when Lindros is out there, which only means you can count the minutes before Lindros has a big injury.

I'm not wishing ill-will to Lindros by any means, but when you have a rough and tumble Conference like the Western Conference is, you're bound to get a bad break here and there, which could amount to his injury count going up, rather than holding steady. Plus, for a guy who has missed 32% of the possible games he could have played in, that to me is much riskier than anything out there, especially when the front lines of Dallas aren't as strong as they used to be.

I have set the over/under of games at 40 games for Lindros. Place your bets.