Dallas Stars: The Tufte Situation is Embarrassing
When the Dallas Stars recalled Riley Tufte on November 11th it seemed like an opportunity to get some reps at the NHL level for the 23 year old rookie.
Tufte immediately got into 2 separate games on November 13th and the 16th but only played approximately 10 minutes behind between the games, but in neither game was Tufte a liability. He played his minutes and didn't bring anything offensively but he didn't give anything away either.
Thursday night Tufte was scheduled to make his NHL debut in his home state of Minnesota and to say he was excited would be an understatement.
"It's something you always dreamed about when you were a little kid... Being able to play here tonight is a dream come true."
It also seemed like the Stars were excited for him when their social media account tweeted this out the morning of his debut.
Tufte was so excited about the game that he spent his entire call up money on tickets for friends and family and when Tufte ran out of money the Wild's Nick Bjugstad helped purchase additional tickets. Just another amazing showing of the closeness in the game of hockey.
So when warms ups hit and Tufte hit the ice his friends and family were thrilled to watch the former 1st round pick, but suddenly things changed. Despite winning both games with Tufte
With friends and family in the stands prepared for his home state debut the team informed Tufte that he was going to be a healthy scratch. Rick Bowness described the situation as having "a game time decision that was ready to go". Unfortunately for Bowness one of those guys was Joel Kiviranta and this is how he repaid his coach.
A move like this is honestly less surprising than it should be, but Bowness decided to reach out to his inner Mike Babcock for this decision and the Hockey Gods got his team thumped 7-2 for his troubles.
There are a lot of things that could have been done here, but Bowness made the completely wrong decision and his solution?
MUST READ
TRENDING NOW
