First Shift \ud83c\udfd2<\/p>\n
With a cap-strapped lineup and a thin prospect pool, the Stars have worked extra hard to find depth forwards in recent seasons.<\/p>\n
Last year, college free agent Justin Hryckowian<\/a> stepped up and contributed 30 points (14 goals, 16 assists) in his first NHL season. This year, that hidden gem might be Arttu Hyry<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hyry (pronounced HOO-ROO), like Hryckowian, is an older player at 25. Also like Hryckowian, he had a great year in the AHL to get ready for the step up. So when the big Finn scored a shorthanded goal in a 3-2 shootout win at Colorado on Wednesday, nobody was surprised.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has hockey IQ,\u201d Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. \u201cHe\u2019s smart. He\u2019s not easy to play against, he\u2019s got a good stick, big body, right shot and he\u2019s competitive. Those guys are hard to play against.\u201d<\/p>\n Hyry so far is averaging 14:07 time on ice per game and winning 65 percent of his faceoffs. He has eight shots on goal in seven games and broke through with a pretty marker on a breakaway. His backhand\/forehand move looked very good.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad used to tell me to always do that move, so maybe it was instinct,\u201d Hyry said.<\/p>\n Hyry had 49 points (24 goals, 25 assists) in 67 games with the Texas Stars in the AHL two seasons ago, so he definitely has a scoring pedigree. Hryckowian jumped up from 60 points (22 goals, 38 assists) in 67 AHL games with Texas and became a big depth scorer for Dallas last season, so there is a good path.<\/p>\n \u201cYou need those guys,\u201d said Gulutzan. \u201cYou need guys to step up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First Shift \ud83c\udfd2 With a cap-strapped lineup and a thin prospect pool, the Stars have worked extra hard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-468565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}