Projecting the Dallas Stars' Offseason All Comes Down to One Simple Thing

Jim Nill is probably working harder than you are, right now

The Stanley Cup Final isn’t even finished, and we’ve already gotten loads of speculation, rumors, and hearsay about the Stars’ offseason plans. Jason Robertson’s name was out there, except now maybe it’s not, unless it is, but probably it won’t be, until someone really wants it to be. Which they might, or might not.

Jamie Benn is definitely going to be back as a Dallas Star, because that’s what he and the Dallas Stars have both said is going to happen, except it hasn’t happened just yet, and also the coach just got fired.

Matt Duchene said he’s tired of redeeming Subway Sub Club stamps from year to year, and he’d like a bit more of the sort of standard NHL multi-year deal that leading scorers tend to get. Fair enough, we suppose.

Mikael Granlund was supposedly going to be re-signed the instant money was freed up, except probably that’s not going to happen now, which seemed like the most likely outcome all along. Then again, we’ve known Nill to circle back around to players on July 1 before, so who knows?

Also, Matt Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin are players the Stars are looking into seeing about maybe trading, which is true of approximately every single NHL team’s depth defensemen with contracts above league minimum and with some term remaining.

No, the Stars have not been shrinking violets when it comes to the NHL news cycle, but given the lack of actual moves thus far, we’re all left to speculate just how far any of the above talks have or haven’t gone.

From all that’s been out there, the Stars have been preparing to meet with their scouting staff internally, which means all sorts of offseason plans have to be considered, discussed, and prepared for, along with Plans B, C, and D.

Last year at this time, it was pretty clear that re-signing Chris Tanev was Plan A, and the Stars ended up going with one or two of their backup plans. And given the way Dallas exited the playoffs, it’s no surprise that they would at least look into (i.e. talk to other teams) about what trade value those backup plans may or may not have, should they want to do a hard pivot to this year’s Plan A, or B, or whatever.

Put it this way: these are all the exact sorts of rumors you’d expect to hear if Jim Nill were doing his job and rustling bushes, getting a feel for the trade market ahead of the NHL draft and free agency. This is how the business works. It’s worth listening to the whispers, but it’s also important to keep the current context in mind.

And that context is pretty simple, I think. Because the Stars’ offseason plans were already pretty clear even before the aforementioned rumors seemed to make those plans even more clear: They meed to create some salary cap space ahead of free agency.

Yes, that’s something the Stars absolutely have to do, and they have less than two weeks to do it. Oh, and they’d probably want to have a coach in place before free agency, too, all things considered. And then they need to finalize their draft board before picks start on June 27, given the possibility of acquiring some additional draft selections at or before the draft.

So, in the next 14 days, Nill has a to-do list on his refrigerator that probably looks like this:

GET A NEW COACH (not Ken Hitchcock this time, no matter what anyone says)
MAKE TRADES (note to self: Call Buffalo every day)
DRAFT PLAYERS (note to self: use Buffalo’s picks)
SIGN FREE AGENTS (good ones, as always often happens)

I suspect Jim Nill is not making much of a dent in his Netflix queue this month.

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Yes, there’s been little bits of news, because things do have to happen in the organization. But overall, the rumors are pretty sensible meanderings around the main point: The Stars have just $5 million in cap space, and four, five, or six players still to be signed. Two of those are (perhaps) Duchene and Benn, who could on their own take up all $5 million (or more) of that cap space.

That’s where you realize the Stars really do have to make a trade, because the Stars only have eight forwards signed for next year, though Mavrik Bourque would make it nine (and Benn + Duchene would be eleven). And again, only about $5 million in cap space, right now.

They have six defensemen signed, but Dumba’s name being “out there” would seem to indicate that the Stars don’t anticipate a new coach squeezing more juice out of last summer’s offseason signing(s) than the old coach did.

The goalie situation is set, too. The Stars have zero reason to mess with that position right now, given how well the DeSmith-Oettinger tandem performed, even if you think Oettinger needs to find another gear. There isn’t anything remotely close to an upgrade on that situation available anyway, so it’s almost certain to look the same in the fall no matter what.

So, again, the mission is really quite simple: the Stars have to make more room in their salary cap before they do anything else of consequence. And the players they can move are extremely limited.

First, here are the players they can’t move: Mikko Rantanen, Roope Hintz, Tyler Seguin, and Miro Heiskanen all have no-move clauses. Esa Lindell is a step down, with a full no-trade clause for the next few years. All of these players make sense to keep even without their full trade control, though Seguin’s health will be something to watch next year, what with Seguin’s shoulder injury he was dealing with during the playoffs.

As for the names the Stars could move, here they are in descending order of salary cap hit for 2025-26: Wyatt Johnston, Jason Robertson, Mason Marchment (10-team no-trade list), Thomas Harley, Matt Dumba, Ilyu Lyubushkin, Sam Steel, Lian Bichsel, and Oskar Bäck.

When you look at that list, you immediately scratch off three names: Harley, Johnston, and Bichsel. Every team in the league would love to have those players, which means they’re still far more of a boon to the Stars’ cap situation than a drag. You make other moves in order to keep those sorts of guys, not the other way ‘round.

So, that leaves you with a pretty short list of even remotely possible “tradeable” names: Robertson, Marchment, Dumba, Lyubushkin, Steel, and Bäck. The first four of those names have been precisely the same ones showing up in the rumor mill this week, because honestly, they kind of have to be, once you go through the process of elimination. If you want to move salary, you start with the biggest and most movable parts.

Maybe Sam Steel could find also himself in that unfortunate Radek Faksa category after his raise up to $2.1 million, but I’d be surprised if the Stars move him, given they’d still have to replace him with someone making nearly a million dollars themselves, at least. That’s not exactly going to free up the necessary space to finally sign John Tavares.

When you really look at the Stars’ options beyond truly major surgery, it really is about the two left-wingers and the two right-shot defensemen that have been in rumors this week. Those are the players who can be traded, which means that, given the Stars’ need to create salary cap space, one or more of those probably will be traded, unless Nill has a trick up his sleeve.

The good news for Dallas is that they have players like Justin Hryckowian waiting to fill out their lower foward lines in Texas next year at a salary not too far above league minimum. Arttu Hyry and Matěj Blümel might also see a new coach as a fresh opportunity to prove they deserve an NHL spot, though Blümel is about to be an unrestricted free agent, so he might decide to bide his time a bit and see which other NHL teams feel the same way about him. And after leading the AHL in goal-scoring and posting a strong playoff run with Texas, Blümel has more than earned the right to choose his own adventure.

But those players are great for filling out the final spots on a roster, not for giving a fanbase reason to think these Stars could take Florida next year, should they even manage to get that far. No, there seems to be general agreement that Dallas needs just a touch more work before they’re ready for the biggest stage of all, even if they are earning bronze medals galore in recent years.

Right now, everyone is watching Brad Marchand melt down the Edmonton defense like a Dairy Queen Blizzard on a Dallas afternoon, but he’s probably going to require a big ticket at an advanced age. Same with John Tavares (who would be my absolute number one target if I were a GM, though he’ll probably get a deal somewhere in the 2019 Joe Pavelski range of $6-7 million for a few years, which would price out Dallas unless they do a seriously major roster makeover). These players all sound great, until you realize what Dallas would have to do to make room for them.

Put it this way: even if the Stars did something like you Fantasy Camp GMs over on Facebook Marketplace (is this how the internet works?) are talking about, and traded Mason Marchment to free up his $4.5 million cap hit, that still means the Stars would have only $9.4 million to sign at least five forwards, let alone upgrade the defense, too. Good luck figuring out how Bourque, Duchene, Benn (even if he took a huge sweetheart of a deal with base pay of just $1 million with performance bonuses rolling over to next year), Hryckowian, and an impact forward could all fit with that number without somebody doing Dallas a huge ol’ favor. Oh, and you also have to decide what to do with Nils Lundkvist, who surely merits at least his qualifying offer of $1.25 million, if not more.

Even if the Stars somehow moved Dumba’s entire $3.75 million cap hit for next year, that means they would only have that same number (this is called math) to add to their relatively small bucket of cap space. And given how paltry the list of pending UFA defensemen is this offseason, I wonder if the Stars might find themselves better-suited to avoid too many big purchases, and any of the major cap dumps such spending sprees would require. The trade deadline might end up being the better marketplace, if they can wait that long.

You can draw up fantasy lineups all you want, but the money really dictates everything right now. That’s why it’s the biggest, most important question Nill has to answer before anything else happens. It’s not a scandal that Lyubushkin or Robertson or Marchment or Dumba or anyone else has been mentioned as someone the Stars might have discussed with another team; frankly, it would be far more shocking if they hadn’t.