Peverley still in hospital, team wins

Stars forward Rich Peverley remained hospitalized on Tuesday in Dallas, undergoing heart tests after collapsing on the bench during a game that was postponed a night earlier.

His teammates? They did a fine job concentrating on the business at hand and earned a 3-2 overtime victory over the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night.

"I think the veterans in the room deserve a lot of credit," Stars coach Lindy Ruff said. "As a coach you can say a lot but I think it comes from within.

"They have been through the trenches and seen some tough stuff."

After an eerily quiet flight and a sleepless night all around, the Stars were back on the ice for a morning skate in St. Louis on Tuesday. They were relieved Peverley's heart condition had stabilized but were clearly shaken by an event that put their playoff push in perspective.

Even if the NHL hadn't postponed the game on Monday with the Columbus Blue Jackets leading 1-0 early in the first period, linemate Tyler Seguin was done for the night. He had come off the ice just ahead of Peverley and was right there when Peverley lost consciousness during what was called a "cardiac event."

"I went in the room and took my stuff off right away," Seguin said, his voice catching a bit. "I was right beside him when it was all happening."

Forward Vernon Fiddler was with Nashville when the Red Wings' Jiri Fischer collapsed on the Detroit bench in 2005, also from a heart problem.

"You don't expect that ever to happen," Fiddler said. "I have been unfortunate to be part of both of those."

Fiddler was among four Stars players made available after the morning skate, a veteran hoping to help the youngsters cope.

For one Stars teammate, Alex Chiasson, it was too much. The team said he joined Peverley in a Dallas hospital for observation because he was so distraught.

"Yeah, yeah, he wasn't doing good," Ruff said. "A lot of anxiety associated with what happened last night."

The Blues also had emotions to sort out.

Coach Ken Hitchcock was watching on TV and remembered "the silence was deafening". Hitchcock rewound his DVR and then froze the screen trying to detect who was in peril on the Stars bench, then waited nervously for an update.

"Lindy saying he's OK, he's asking about 'Can he play?' again, I think calmed everybody down," Hitchcock said. "But there was no way you could play the game. The look on the players' faces on both sides, there was no way you could play the game."

Blues forward Brenden Morrow has vivid memories of Buffalo's Richard Zednik getting his throat slashed by the skate of a tumbling teammate in 2008. Morrow roomed with Zednik in juniors, and the two were close friends.

"Those are scary things," Morrow said. "I don't even know where to begin with what they are thinking in that locker room."

The 31-year-old Peverley, who averaged 16 minutes of ice time in all six games of the Stanley Cup finals last season with Boston, was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat in training camp and underwent a procedure that sidelined him through the first regular season game.

He had played in 60 consecutive games before sitting out at Columbus last week due to the x-effects of his heart condition, but Monday's game was his third straight since then.

(China Daily 03/13/2014 page23)