NHL team loses both their big free agent signing and first round pick to injury!

When you add two highly talented players to your roster in the offseason the last thing you want is to lose them both to injury before training camp even begins, but that's exactly what has happened to the Dallas Stars.

First the more minor of the two injuries. According to Dallas Stars insider Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News forward Martin Hanzal has been injured and will miss the start of training camp, although he is not expected to be out long-term.

The often-injured Hanzal signed a three-year deal with the Stars this summer but now he has suffered an injured ankle prior to ever playing a single second for the team. Heika reports that Hanzal will miss "at least" the first four days of training camp with the injury. 

The more serious news however is the fact that first round draft pick Miro Heiskanen has also suffered an injury, and this one sounds considerably more serious. Heiskanen, the third overall pick in the 2017 draft, suffered a concussion in the Finish Elite League and by the sounds of it he will miss the entire training camp with the injury. 

Heika reports that not only has Heiskanen not skated for several weeks now, but in fact the injury is so serious that there were concerns about having him fly from Finland to Dallas. 

[pub]

"He's going under some concussion protocol testing," said Stars general manager Jim Nill as per the Dallas Morning News. "We're going to get to a point where (his team in Finland) is already playing, he hasn't skated for two or three weeks, and he would hardly skate here. I don't want to interrupt his season too much. I want to be careful."

While the 18-year-old defenseman was a long shot to make the Stars starting roster this season, it was not outside the realm of possibility given both his level of talent and the questionable depth on the Stars blue line. Now however without the Stars getting an opportunity to see him in either the prospects tournament or training camp its not only a major setback for Heiskanen, it also seems certain he won't even get a sniff at the roster. 

Word is the Stars are currently looking for a witch to cast a protection spell on Alexander Radulov.