All the Lingering Questions about the Dallas Stars 24 Hours Before the Trade Deadline
Roope Hintz skated in practice today, while Radek Faksa did not
The NHL trade deadline is tomorrow (Friday) at 2:00pm Central. Writing anything at this point always runs the risk of being outdated quickly, so let’s just jump right into what we learned at practice today about the Stars’ roster management, players recovering from injuries, and what could still happen before the trade deadline tomorrow.
So, let’s go through the outstanding questions point by point following Glen Gulutzan’s updates after the Stars practiced today.
How tough is the trade deadline on players?
Gulutzan said today that the Stars intentionally didn’t have a video meeting before the team skated in practice today. That decision was made, in part, because he understands the human element surrounding all the trade talk right now.
And from the sound of it, that means having players sit in a room and try to focus on a screen while coaches point things out probably would have been tougher than usual. So instead, Gulutzan had all the energy go into a relatively short practice today.
“Just kind of let the guys decompress,” Gulutzan said. “Get a little blowout on the ice.”
The team will do their usual video meeting tomorrow morning when they prepare for Colorado. But for now, Gulutzan said he’s trying to be attentive to the harsh realities that go along with the trade deadline.
“It’s tough,” Gulutzan said. “You just want to keep business as usual, because even today, we know the anxiety level that’s around some players at this time of the year. I’ve seen it for a lot of years. It’s hard on guys, and it’s hard on us coaches. You build relationships with players, and business has to happen.”
The Stars’ relatively small draft pick capital and fairly tight salary cap situation for next year could mean that a roster player (or two) wind up leaving Dallas in a trade in the next 24 hours. And even talking to some players in the room after practice, you could sense a bit of the tension Gulutzan was talking about.
“You can tell everybody knows what time of year it is,” Gulutzan said. “It’s an exciting time, but it’s also a stressful time for lots of people.”
When will Tyler Myers get into the lineup?
Tyler Myers said on his media Zoom call Wednesday night that he is planning to fly to Dallas today (Thursday), and to participate in morning skate with Dallas on Friday. But whether he’ll end up playing against Colorado tomorrow night still remains to be seen.
After all, Myers hasn’t played in a game in over a month. Since the Olympic break, the Canucks have kept Myers out of game action to avoid injury risk ahead of a trade last NHL action was on February 4th, when he played 20:48 in Vancouver’s 5-2 loss to Vegas.
“There may be an easing-in process for him,” Gulutzan said today. “You want to see him here, first. Second, you don’t know how much he’s skated. He sat out games, obviously, in Vancouver, waiting [to see] if something was gonna happen. So you don’t know how much ice he’s been on.”
“And then there’s the third part of it, with the systems and everything, the changes,” Gulutzan said. “You certainly want to put a guy in to have success when he does come in, and give him some time. So we’ll see what time he gets in tonight and see how much he’s skated. But I would assume it’s probably 50-50 for Friday, and you’ll probably see him, more likely, on Sunday.”
Gulutzan said he’ll end up making the decision after Myers arrives and he has a chance to talk with him. But with the Stars on a franchise-best ten-game winning streak, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them go up against Colorado with the players who have brought them this far, then get Myers into the lineup against Chicago on Sunday after he’s had a chance to practice with the team.
Who will Myers’s defense partner be?
Gulutzan was noncommittal when asked about where he saw Myers slotting into the lineup, and that wasn’t a surprise, given the implications it would have for players currently on the roster.
“I think he can play all over,” Gulutzan said of Myers. “Our guys are going pretty good right now, so I’m not sure exactly where I’m gonna slot him in. I am paying attention to this deadline just like everybody else, but geez, I’ve been paying attention to this game versus Colorado since the last time we played Colorado. So that’s kind of where my focus is.”
That’s probably the right approach, too. This game is not only one of Dallas’s only chances to make up serious ground on the Avalanche in hope of making it an actual race for the top spot in the Division (and a far easier first-round opponent), but it’s also going to be a very intense game, given the quality of teams involved.
Asking Myers to play a new hybrid zone defensive scheme after playing man-on-man in Vancouver this year is a tough ask right off the bat, but asking him to do so against the best team in the NHL makes it even tougher.
(By the way, Sam Nestler of DLLS had a good quote from Canucks Army about how Myers has fared while playing in Adam Foote’s man-on-man system this year, so check that out if you haven’t yet.)
Whenever he draws into the lineup, Myers will make the Stars defense corps better. And Gulutzan is clearly excited about that, however the pairings end up shaking out.
“I think he can slot in with any number of guys,” Gulutzan said. “He’s been around the league. He’s a veteran guy, and he’s played big games. He can slot in everywhere. I just think, at this time of the year, to have players like that and depth like we have is huge. Huge.”
Gulutzan also added a neat anecdote about how Myers’ journey moving from Texas to Calgary when he was about 10 years old is similar to what Gulutzan’s children went through when Gulutzan left Texas after being fired in 2013, and also moved up to Calgary.
“It’s a pretty neat story, right?” Gulutzan said. “Comes full circle. It’s probably a neat experience for him.”
When will Roope Hintz, Mikko Rantanen, and Radek Faksa return?
Today was the first time it’s really been apparent how close we are to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which will begin somewhere around April 20.
That realization hit today primarily because of how injury information has become tougher to come by. Let’s go player-by-player on whom the Stars are missing right now.
Good news first: Roope Hintz skated in practice with the team today, and he looks likely to play tomorrow.
“I would think he’ll be a player tomorrow,” Gulutzan said of Hintz. “I haven’t got final word, but I think he should be good to go tomorrow. If not, like I said before, Sunday for sure.”
Hintz’s prolonged recovery after returning from the Olympics lingered long enough for them to put him on IR, which opened up a roster spot that has allowed them to avoid putting a defenseman on waivers for the time being. (More on that down below.)
“He was sick,” Gulutzan said. “Trying to get him right back into shape. He had a virus. It was a long, long run.”
Gulutzan added that Hintz was “down a little bit in weight” after his illness, similar to Mikko Rantanen during his earlier sickness this year. And even when Hintz was able to start skating again, it was clear he needed time to get back to his NHL self.
“Even when he came back and skated the first couple times, he was still really lethargic,” Gulutzan said. “He was on meds to kind of get things settled down. It wasn’t until I think the morning skate in Calgary [on Tuesday] that he had there, that he started to feel a little bit like himself.”
As for Mikko Rantanen: before the Stars traveled to Canada, Gulutzan had said that Rantanen was certainly going to be out for at least two weeks to begin with, and that the team would evaluate him further after that point.
Gulutzan has said that he was confident Rantanen would be back before the end of the regular season, and that still seems like it will be the case. Right now, indications are that Rantanen is still on track for what could end up being something like a 3-4 week timeline from his IR assignment which was retroactive to February 20.
Gulutzan said Rantanen might be able to start skating within a week from today, which accords with something like a mid- to late-March return, but until Rantanen does start skating, even rough projections are a little premature.
And given the proximity to the playoffs, you can bet the Stars will be exceedingly cautious with their superstar forward as he works his way back to game readiness.
The less positive news was about Radek Faksa, who has gone from being very likely to play in the Stars’ first game out of the Olympic break to not even skating at practice.
Gulutzan said today, in fact, that Rantanen is now closer to beginning to skate than Faksa.
“Both guys aren't going to be skating here for a couple days,” Gulutzan said. “Maybe 3 or 4 days, for sure, for Mikko. Maybe a little longer for ‘Faks. We'll see how this all plays out, but I haven’t got a report on them since I’ve gotten back.”
When asked if Faksa’s absence was still related to his upper-body injury at the Olympics, Gulutzan would only say this: “There’s some lingering things going on there.”
Putting the pieces together from Gulutzan’s comments (and lack thereof) as well as Faksa’s sudden absence from practice, I think we can safely assume that Faksa is probably dealing with more than just a minor upper-body injury.
Whether that’s due to an additional injury preventing him from skating or just further symptoms from the same upper-body injury isn’t public knowledge yet. But right now, it certainly looks and sounds like Faksa has a ways to go before returning to the lineup.
Like with Rantanen, any further projections will have to wait until Faksa starts skating again—whenever that ends up being.
What will the forward lineup look like on Friday against Colorado?
In practice lines today, Gulutzan certainly looked to be planning for two things: Roope Hintz’s return, and Arttu Hyry’s absence.
Hyry is waivers exempt right now, so sending him down to the AHL would have been one way for Dallas to make in order to open up a roster spot for Hintz to come off IR. But since NHL rosters expand after the 2pm Friday trade deadline and are then no longer limited to 23 players, the roster jam won’t be a problem after the deadline, so long as the Stars are still under the salary cap.
I’d still expect Hyry to be sent down tomorrow in one way or another, as the Stars will surely want to make him eligible for the AHL playoffs. (As a reminder, trade deadline day is the one day of the year where players can be “papered” down to the AHL and recalled without having to play a game.)
Interestingly, Kyle Capobianco was not put on waivers today, which means Capobianco wouldn’t be able to have cleared waivers tomorrow, and thus able to be assigned to Texas.
And unless I’m missing something, I believe that also means Capobianco won’t be eligible to play in the AHL playoffs this season.
We should know more about why the Stars went this route tomorrow, when Jim Nill speaks to the media after the trade deadline passes.
What will the forward lineup look like on Friday against Colorado?
As for the lineup as it stands now, Hyry rotated into practice lines a bit today, but he didn’t figure into the primary line rushes, as Oskar Bäck skated as the fourth-line center in his place. Here’s what those rushes looked like today:
Robertson-Hintz-Johnston
Steel-Duchene-Benn
Erne-Hryckowian-Bourque
Blackwell-Bäck-Bastian
Hyry
This lineup was also a notable bit of good news for Nathan Bastian, who appears to be staying in the lineup for tomorrow’s game after enduring a fair amount of healthy scratches this season. We’ll see what morning skate looks like tomorrow, but those are the groups that we saw today, though Gulutzan acknowledged that things still haven’t been finalized.
“Once Roope comes in, it’s going to change things, certainly,” Gulutzan said. “I gave Johnny [Johnston] some reps on right wing. You guys probably all saw that. So I don’t know if that’s the way we’ll stay tomorrow, but if we did have Roope in, that’s obviously a possibility.”
Without Rantanen, the Stars’ lack of scoring winger is pretty apparent. However, putting Mavrik Bourque down on a third line with (former QueBäck linemate) Justin Hryckowian gives Dallas some playmaking ability on a third line, rather than just the two forward lines they’ve had to load up in recent games.
What else will Dallas do before the trade deadline?
Finally, let’s talk about what the Stars might still do with the roughly $5 million in cap space they can still use after acquiring Myers and putting Tyler Seguin on season-ending LTIR.
The most obvious move, and one I think will happen, is for Dallas to add another forward. A GM like Jim Nill isn’t going to go out and trade a first-rounder for a Nic Roy sort of player like Colorado did, but I do believe the Stars won’t let all the space they still have go un-used, especially with their lack of top-nine wingers on the roster as it stands right now.
Names you’ll see “linked” to Dallas on Twitter might include people like Nazem Kadri and Steven Stamkos, whose multi-year contracts would require so much major surgery for Dallas that they’d be practically impossible to fit. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to those sorts of rumors, unless something radically changes for Dallas. They just don’t make any mathematical sense.
On the other side of things, you could still see Dallas being interested in pending UFA wingers like Erik Haula, Michael Bunting, or Bobby McMann. It wouldn’t shock me if Dallas waits until close to the deadline before doing such a move, hoping the teams selling lower the prices under time pressure.
Lastly, another player whose name keeps popping up is Blake Coleman, who has obvious Texas ties and a limited NTC that might limit Calgary’s options (and thus, drive his trade price down).
Coleman would be a good fit into the Dallas lineup, but again, I’m just not sure how his $4.9 million cap hit can work for Dallas, even if Calgary retains some of it. I mean, even with the max retention of 50% by the Flames, Coleman’s cap hit would still mean Dallas would have him at $2.45 million next year. And that number combined with Myers’s newly added $1.5 million is just shy of $4 million in additional cap hit.
When you subtract that number from Dallas’s previous projection of $14.3 million in cap room, suddenly you’re in a position where you have only 19 roster players signed for 2026-27, a bit over $10 million in cap room, and unsigned players such as Jason Robertson, Mavrik Bourque, and Nils Lundkvist.
Dallas might look to send a player back to Calgary like Steel or Lyubushkin in order to make some room, but even after doing so, their cap for next year would still be incredibly tight, with multiple RFA deals still to do. That’s a tough spot for a team to be in, no matter what number Robertson might be looking for on his next deal.
So, yes: I believe Dallas will look to use their remaining cap space to make their team better. But what it will cost them now and over the summer are questions that don’t have a lot of easy answers—at least, from where we’re sitting here on the outside.
Then again, Jim Nill has shown time and time again that when it comes to trades, he can wheel and deal with the best of them. Doubt him at your peril, I suppose.