Stars star Tyler Seguin will miss Game 1 against the Wild; Erik Haula skating

UPDATED

Good morning from Dallas.

The Stars had their morning skate, and the Wild had its, uh, afternoon skate because of the 8:30 game. I'll be hosting a live chat at 3 p.m. today at startribune.com/wild.

So, please come back for that. I'll also be on Dan Barreiro's show on KFAN at 5:55 p.m.

Today's Wild coverage

My John Torchetti piece in advance of his playoff NHL head-coaching debut. I've written a lot about Torchetti, but this one is particularly fun and informative in my opinion. Please give a read.

Zach Parise is trying physical therapy first, but one option is back surgery. Here's that story, plus the Wild's other injury updates.

Chip Scoggins' column on the lack of excitement that there seems to be heading into these playoffs.

Here is a taped Q and A I did with the Dallas Morning News to advance the series

Here is our Dallas stringer's Stars notebook on Tyler Seguin being in limbo for Game 1

He's no longer in limbo. He's out.

Stars coach Lindy Ruff confirmed Seguin, who missed the final 10 games of the season with a lacerated Achilles' tendon, won't play tonight. He says he's "real close" and will likely return in Game 2 on Saturday.

Also, Kari Lehtonen looks like tonight's starter, although Ruff joked to me that he told Antti Niemi to stay on the ice as long as possible for smoke and mirrors.

"How do we know he's starting?" Ruff said. "All smokes and mirrors now, I told Antti stay out as long as you possibly could today just to throw us some smoke."

Here's Dallas' lines.

Here's the Wild's lines

I go a long ways back with Ruff. He was an assistant coach on those early Panthers teams I covered and I was in the Marlins press box in 1997 writing about him taking the head job in Buffalo.

"I remember how nervous I was way back when," Ruff said. "It's an exciting moment. As a young coach, I probably did way too much, tried to do way too much, I wanted to try to cover every base and go over everything and talk to every player. I think I've learned over the years that my focus is turned more on my own team versus going over too much on the other team. But it's an exciting time. It's a hard grind for a coach in this league and it's a hard grind for him stepping in when he stepped in and you got to give a lot of credit for being able to get the Wild in the playoffs, and I think he's excited about the opportunity to challenge us to be the better team, put up some structure that's going to make it really tough on us."

This will be Dalpe's playoff debut.

"I like to think I worked hard in my rehab to get to kind of a reward like this," said Dalpe, who missed most of Iowa's season with hip surgery, then a knee injury. "So I'm excited. It's my first playoff game is six years as a pro. Just very excited."

"Talked to him a little bit yesterday," coach John Torchetti said. "We talked about how far he came from where he was just two months ago and I said, 'How about that?' Nothing else. He's fine with his game. I think he knows his role. We've talked about that prior. We don't want anyone to change their role when they get called up. Play the same way. That's what's great about playing the same system. Makes it an easy transition for the player to come from our American League team to the National League team."

Injured Erik Haula is skating right now to see if there's a chance he practices tomorrow.

The Wild knows it's considered the underdog in this series by virtually anybody outside the locker room. Asked what he thinks about the underdog role, Torchetti said, "I don't like it. That's just saying that people don't think we can win. We're a pretty good hockey team. We're in the same building that everyone else is in. sixteen teams made it. We've got a chance to prove it to ourselves. That's all I really care about is how much we want to play for each other."

The Wild also signed Adam Gilmour, who signed an entry-level contract starting next season earlier this week, to an amateur tryout. He can play in Iowa's final two games & is eligible to practice with Minnesota during the playoffs.