Some Thoughts on Joel Kiviranta's Return to Dallas and the Stars' Winger Conundrum

One year, $1 million

What is an asteroid?

Dallas lost one winger yesterday morning, but they gained another about 12 hours later. On Wednesday evening, the Stars announced that Joel Kiviranta was coming back to Dallas. Kiviranta will make $1 million against the cap, which has pretty much been what he’s earned his entire career.

Kiviranta doesn’t replace Mavrik Bourque, of course. He isn’t supposed to, though. Just take a gander at this section of the press release the team put out last night, in fact:

Kiviranta, 30, had nine points (3-6—9) in 51 games for the Colorado Avalanche in 2025-26 while also appearing in five postseason contests for the club. According to Natural Stat Trick, when Kiviranta was on the ice during 5-on-5 play during the regular season, the Avalanche outscored their opponents 20-12 and owned a 59.5 shots for percentage. Kiviranta also totaled 53:15 of shorthanded time on ice and 1:03 of shorthanded ice time per game, making the 2025-26 season the fourth consecutive year in which he averaged over a minute of ice time on the penalty kill per game.

Kiviranta scored 16 goals two years ago, in 2024-25 with Colorado. Outside of that year, he’s pretty much been a fourth-liner, both in terms of ice time (10-12 minutes per night) and scoring (averaging nine goals per season over his career).

The 5-foot-11 Kiviranta is 30 years old, but his production in traditional terms is only part of his game—though Stars fans might remember that he has a pretty good shot when the situation calls for it.

Last season, Kiviranta was hampered by injuries, suffering both a concussion and a lower-body injury that limited him to just 51 regular season games and 5 playoff contests. Still, his underlying numbers were very solid (even when adjusting for being on the Avalanche), and that’s been the case for most of his career, too.

But go back to that paragraph from the Stars, and you can’t help but wonder if Kiviranta is being brought in to do something pretty similar to what players like Radek Faksa and Sam Steel do as left-hand shots in (usually) bottom-six roles. Is Kiviranta just insurance, or is he a potential replacement?