Rick Bowness absolutely throws Alex Radulov under the bus to Stars media

The Dallas Stars continued their mini-streak tonight, extending their winning streak to three games with a 3-1 win over the sad sack Philadelphia Flyers, who have now lost 12 games in a row.

But, while the Stars came out ahead on the scoreboard there was a prominent member of the team's roster absent for most of the third period. Pending free agent forward Alexander Radulov was benched for large stretches of the third period simply because head coach Rick Bowness felt he wasn't playing well enough.

The 35 year old Radulov has gone pointless in his last five games and has just one goal and 12 points in 32 games this season. At $6.25 million per season that's... that's just not going to cut it.

It's clear that Radulov won't strike it rich on his next contract, if he even wants to stay in the NHL, but it's even more clear to me that he won't be returning to Dallas. The thing is... a highly motivated Radulov can be a dangerous thing. I'd love to see him get a shot elsewhere in the NHL with a playoff bound team just to see if he can up his level of play one last time. When he's at his best he's an absolutely dynamic player who is equally adept at smashing bodies on the forecheck as he is at putting points up on the board.