The Dallas Stars signed Matthew Barnaby to a free agent contract last summer to help provide the club with additional toughness and grit, and for half a season he filled his role excellently.

Unfortunately, one of the occupational hazards of an enforcer who bangs bodies and throws punches for a living is that he will also receive his fair share. Barnaby sustained a concussion from a fight in a game against Phoenix Jan. 9, and it has landed him on the Injured Reserve list indefinitely.

After suffering through several weeks of difficult post-concussion symptoms such as intense headaches, head pressure and disorientation from physical exertion, Barnaby has started to round the corner and get back to his normal self lately. He has been skating with his teammates in practice for about a week and has been progressing nicely.

"I feel a lot better," Barnaby said. "I feel really good, I'm practicing with the team, and I guess the next step is to really pick up the contact part of it. I feel much better than I did six weeks ago, and even three weeks ago. It was nice just to get back with the team."

"Matthew continues to progress trying to exercise where he doesn't have symptoms," Stars head athletic trainer Dave Surprenant added. "We're just wrapping him up so he can get back to playing when his brain and his body says he can without having symptoms, and go back from there. We're moving in the right direction right now."

With fellow agitator Steve Ott also absent due to a long-term injury, the Stars have missed Barnaby's toughness, although rookie Krys Barch has filled in admirably since his recall from the minors on Jan. 25.

"He's a guy that brings a lot of energy, and there's certain games where your team is lacking energy that you need somebody to step in and do that, and Matthew's certainly a guy who has the ability to do that for our team," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "We've had some people step up and take that role since he's been out. Krys Barch has done a real nice job for us. Matthew's such an upbeat guy and a positive guy, we hope he can get back sooner than later."

Through the 39 games he did play in, Barnaby scored one goal and seven points, showing that he can also play the game. More evidence of his skills is his +5 plus/minus rating, which actually still the second-highest on the team. But clearly, the bulk of his role is to play a tough, aggravating brand of hockey and stick up for his teammates. The fact that he was leading the entire NHL in penalty minutes with 127 when he was injured shows how effective he was at it. In fact, Barnaby still ranks sixth on the PIM list and his 11 fighting majors is among the league's top 10, even though he's missed 21 games and counting.

"That grit, Barch has done a great job, but you can never have enough," said captain Brenden Morrow, another player with some bite who has been out since late December with damaged tendons in his wrist. "In an 82-game schedule, there's a lull in a game or you play four games in six nights like we just did, you kind of need that energy around. The guys have found a way to get it done and have played really well, but there's been some games where that element's definitely been missed."

Barnaby struggled through a difficult time in the first couple of weeks following his injury, which wasn't his first concussion, although even he admits he's not sure how many he's sustained over the course of his 14 NHL seasons. Repeated concussions have a cumulative effect, as each successive one requires less impact to create similar damage.

"I think everyone that's played in the league a long time, as long as I have, has had some concussions," Barnaby said. "How many, I don't exactly know the number, but a few."

One of the toughest parts of recovering from a concussion, as opposed to a more normal' injury like a sprained ankle or knee, is that the player can't really do anything to facilitate healing. There is no rehabilitation he can do aside from resting, and while injured players can usually exercise body parts aside from the injured area, someone suffering from a concussion cannot work out at all without aggravating the symptoms. They just have to wait for the fog to clear, and there is no real time table for that.

"It's a little frustrating, " Surprenant said of the rehab' process. "We're limited by physical exertion of what he can and can't do, and we do as much as we can without having any symptoms come back and we are just trying to ramp him up according to what the doctor wanted us to do."

"I was pretty well five and a half weeks without doing absolutely anything, so it's a little bit of a body adjustment getting back into the scheme of things," Barnaby said after he finally started skating again. "You've got to get back in shape, you've got to ride the bike. And everything takes time, you can't do it all in one day, you don't want to push yourself too hard. Little baby steps and go from there."

During the tough stretch early on when he was unable to exercise, a report out of his former home of Buffalo suggested that his concussion was so severe that it caused vision problems and that Barnaby was contemplating retirement. Barnaby says that the story, and the resulting reaction to it, was overblown, exaggerated and definitely premature.

"I think he was just talking about, at the end of the year, you've got to re-evaluate things," Barnaby clarified. "Any time you have an injury, you definitely think about things, but I think it was premature to say exactly what happened. What I'm trying to do right now is get myself feeling better and get back into game shape and help this team win a Stanley Cup." Besides dealing with the post-concussion symptoms and not being able to play, perhaps the toughest part of dealing with being on the sidelines has been his limited contact with his teammates.

"That's the hardest thing," Barnaby said of feeling disconnected from the team. "Recovering from any injury is tough, but when you can't be with the team, when they go on the road, and hanging out, you're on different timetables. I couldn't work out a lot, so you feel like you're getting in the way a little bit, but it's been nice the last week to get back with the guys."

Although he's back practicing with the club again, there is still no specific target date for Barnaby's return.

"We have not set a time line yet," he said. "I think the main thing for me was just to feel better and hopefully be ready to go, and when that point comes, the coaching staff and myself will make it. I haven't had a lot of contact, but that will be the next step, and after that, try to get into the lineup. We have a very strong, solid lineup and obviously, that's probably going to be the biggest and hardest part of the whole thing."

Barnaby will face a tough challenge there, with the outstanding depth the Stars have among their forward lines, and may face a tall order in trying to displace someone from the current group.

"We'll just have to address that when it comes around," Tippett said. "He has to worry about getting healthy first and getting cleared by the doctors, and until we cross that bridge, we'll worry about the players that we have in the lineup right now."

Hopefully, that process will take place sooner rather than later and Barnaby will be ready to contribute on the ice again shortly.