The Dallas Stars announced they would be without Matt Duchene, who is dealing with a lower-body injury,  shortly before the puck dropped for Monday’s game against the Boston Bruins.

Duchene is not the Stars’ best player, but he has a case as their most important thanks to his work on Dallas’s second line while centering Tyler Seguin and Mason Marchment; the duo has outscored opponents 38-17 at 5-on-5.

The center’s absence could not have come at a worse time for the Stars, who are already missing veteran forward Evgenii Dadonov and defensemen Jani Hakanpaa and Nils Lundkvist due to injury.

Without their joint-leading scorer Duchene (22G, 55P), Dallas is deploying versatile forward Sam Steel alongside Seguin and Marchment against Boston. The first-year Star is a fixture on the penalty kill who has collected 7 goals and 18 points in 2023-24.

Dallas’s injury crisis has had surprisingly little effect on their ongoing pursuit of the Central Division crown. The team, which ceded the Central race to the Colorado Avalanche down the stretch in 2022-23, is on a four-game points streak that featured a 9-2 demolition of the rival Nashville Predators.

If the Stars are to hold onto their first-place position despite challenges from Colorado and the Winnipeg Jets, who are 4 points adrift of the top spot with 3 games in hand, they will still need Duchene to return quickly.

Coach Pete DeBoer has yet to address Duchene’s injury, and Stars fans will eagerly monitor his postgame media availability for updates on the mercurial 33-year-old.

Before then, the Stars will work on dispatching the ice-cold Bruins, losers of their last four, in a road contest they lead by a goal through parts of two periods.