A pair of Dallas Stars forwards are expected to miss a handful of preseason games following offseason hip surgeries.

General manager Jim Nill offered the following updates on Jamie Benn and Ales Hemsky to Mark Stepneski of Stars.NHL.com on Monday:

We’re going to monitor them. They’re on their schedule; they are feeling very well, and they are starting to do full practices. They will practice down there (in Cedar Park), and we’ll play it by ear as far as scrimmages and exhibition games.

Very doubtful they’ll play the first four or five exhibition games. We are hoping to get them in the last couple games, which is the best-case scenario. We are going to play it by ear. We’ve gone this far, it’s a long year, and we are going to make sure they are 100 percent before they play.