Stephane Robidas (Photo taken by Melissa Grissom)

#3/ Defenseman

March 3rd, 1977 in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada

5’11/ 196 lbs

GP: 75

G: 5

A: 17

P: 22

+/-: -5

PIM: 48

Contract Status: 2 years at $3.3 Million Dollars

Boston throws out Zdeno Chara for half of each game, Nashville has the dynamic duo of Ryan Suter and Shea Weber playing the majority of minutes on the back end, and down in Dallas we have Stephane Robidas who fills those shoes, every game he suits up knowing he will be going head to head with the best forwards of the opponent that night and obviously not the biggest player by a long shot, but amongst many players and coaches Robidas is noted as one of the toughest to play against and where he lacks in size he makes up for in heart in determination. This has not gone unnoticed as Robidas was voted TSN’s 2009 No Guts, No Glory champion (an unofficial award) for taking a shot to the face breaking his jaw in a game against Phoenix, but only missed one shift putting a cage on his face and logging more ice time than any other skater that night. Since the retirement of Mattias Nordstrom and the departures of Phillipe Boucher and Sergei Zubov in 2008, Stephane Robidas has averaged about 24 minutes a game and if you take every game Robidas has played since the 2008 playoffs that is almost 7,500 minutes of him taking a beating from big forwards and also handing out crushing body checks of his own.

Stephane Robidas has been with the organization for a long time in two tours of duty, including being traded in the 2003-2004 season to the Chicago Blackhawks for Jon Klemm and returning to Dallas as a free agent the very next offseason. He is second only to Brenden Morrow amongst active Dallas Stars in career games played in a Stars uniform, (632 of 799 career NHL games) and one All-Star appearance in the 2009 All-Star game in Montreal.

Robidas is a part of the aging leadership core in Dallas and in all those games and all those minutes his health really started to take a toll this season with injuries and often being exposed by other teams top lines and at the age of 35 with young rookies like Brenden Dillon looking for a spot on the NHL roster next season and possibly first round draft pick Jamie Oleksiak getting a look at NHL ice time some point next season will the Stars be better suited moving Robidas to a team that has a better spot for him possibly as a strong second or really good third pair defenseman, and moving on possibly making room for a free agent and moving the veteran leadership responsibilities to Trevor Daley and Alex Goligoski.