Hanley Recall Puts Texas Down to Five D Just When They Need Defense the Most

(Credit: Texas Stars)

It's not getting any easier in Cedar Park as the Texas Stars lost another veteran defenseman this afternoon. Joel Hanley was recalled to Dallas to backfill for John Klingberg, who was injured in last night's game with San Jose.

With Gavin Bayreuther on the mend, Reece Scarlett out for the season and Dillon Heatherington already in Dallas, Texas will need to make a recall to join some combination of the following five defensemen tomorrow night: Shane Hanna, Ben Gleason, John Nyberg, Niklas Hansson and Ondrej Vala.

Those five defensemen have a total of 139 games in the AHL between them. For contrast, Hanley has 270 on his own.

Texas has not been getting the performances they need in terms of overall defensive play, forwards or defensemen. Stability would be a much needed salve to their issues at the moment. However, another salve is playing a last-place team, which is exactly what they will be doing this weekend. The Rampage have won just 3 games this year and could be a confidence boost for Texas in their two game set Saturday and Sunday.

Here's the release:

Dallas Stars General Manager Jim Nill announced today that the club has recalled defenseman Joel Hanley from the Texas Stars, Dallas' top development affiliate in the American Hockey League (AHL). Hanley joins Dillon Heatherington and Denis Gurianov in Dallas and is the fourth Texas player recalled this season.

Hanley, 27, currently shares first among Texas defensemen with four assists and ranks second with five points (1-4=5) in 11 games so far this season. The defenseman also shares first among all Texas skaters with a +3 plus/minus rating in 2018-19.

The 5-foot-10, 190-pound native of Keswick, Ontario was originally undrafted and signed with Dallas as a free agent on July 1, 2018. Hanley has appeared in 22 career NHL regular-season contests with Montreal and Arizona, recording six assists (0-6=6) and four penalty minutes.