What We Can Learn from Listening Closely to Matt Duchene and Tyler Seguin

These players usually don't mince words, but they did chop it up a bit on Saturday

There has been a lot of rumbling about News In Dallas, lately, as Kevin Weekes did his usual “Tweet a picture” deal that usually means Some News, of whatever kind, for a city. Weekes works for an NHL rights holder (ESPN), so he is privvy to information that even other media insiders are not. But as Jeff Marek taught us last summer, working for a rights holder also means you have to be extremely circumspect with sharing such information. So, Weekes drops vague hints, and we all wait.

It’s not reporting, but it is entertaining if you’re bored on Twitter. People like to speculate. Anyone who ever worked for an NHL site that dealt in search-engine optimization knows that the easiest way to juice your page views is to have something about “trade rumors” in the headline. (Wait, is it too late to change the headline for this piece?)

In this case, Weekes tweeted a picture of American Airlines Center, presumably because he tried to find an identifiable Dallas landmark for a few minutes before realizing that tweeting a picture of a red pegasus would confuse everyone outside of Dallas (and even some inside). At least Pittsburgh has those bridges everyone knows, I guess. Maybe Reunion Tower would have been the way to go, unless he’s hinting at news about the AAC itself. By the way, don’t overlook the fact that Gary Bettman said last week what Tom Gaglardi hinted at in April: the AAC needs some upgrades in the short term.

This is coupled with the somewhat less-reliable rumors about about exit interviews and player unhappiness regarding some decisions by Pete DeBoer. But those rumors are coming from the same reporter who said Dallas was going to trade Mason Marchment last summer, so make of that what you will. Every offseason without a Stanley Cup is going to have some disappointed players, and every coach is going to have some valid criticisms to be made. Jim Nill is not a hasty person though (unless Mikko Rantanen is available), so I don’t put much stock in such “reports” until they’re sourced or attributed or explained.

The only reporting I have on this for now is that, yes, some players I’ve talked to over the past week have said, diplomatically, that they think some different decisions could have been made. But that’s pretty common when you have a team losing in disappointing fashion the way Dallas did against Edmonton. As DeBoer himself said, everything is on the table, so I think even he would agree that there were probably some decisions he made that didn’t work out. Trying to make that into some huge scandal about a rift in the room is probably better for Twitter engagement than it is for factual reporting. So for today, I’m going to stick with what a couple of players have said on the record.

Jim Nill’s real job at this point is to listen to everyone and then decide what is truly in Dallas’s best interest for next season and beyond. (Also, that is always his job.) But the pressure feels a little more intense this year than it did last year, which is to be expected in any offseason when you win fewer playoff games than the year prior.

For now, I wanted to see what else we can glean from two other exit interviews: Matt Duchene and Tyler Seguin. I think there’s more there than was immediately apparent, so like we did with Oettinger and DeBoer the other day, I’ve combed through nearly 30 minutes of their Q&A sessions to highlight some specific points to discuss.

Tuck in for another long one, folks.

Matt Duchene

(This should start at Duchene’s portion at 25:40, but if now, you can watch the full Duchene interview here.)

Here are some of the things that stuck out to me during Duchene’s availability.

• “I’d love to stay here and make it work. I’m in a little different place maybe than I was last year, looking at things. But I believe in this group and wanna be here. I know how close we are, and I don’t take that lightly. I’ve spent most of my career watching the first, second, third round, fourth round, right?”

  • Which kind of begs the question: “If Florida or Edmonton comes calling, will Dallas have more competition this time?” I think the answer is less certain than it was last summer.

• “I tell you what, it was hard waking up yesterday. Hard going to bed the night before. It’s still hard. I get random feelings just, sick to my stomach walking around right now. Because you know the opportunity you have, and as you get older, you know […] you appreciate it more. It hurts more. It hurts a lot more.” And then Duchene added this: “It’s harder to lose when we did than losing in the first round or not making the playoffs. Way harder.”

  • So much for that “better to have loved and lost” nonense. The greater the pursuit, the greater the pain. Regret is like an illness when it’s freshest. I suspect most of you will have experienced this sort of feeling before, like the day after a car accident.

• “I think at this point, as a family, my kids are getting to the point where you’re looking for some stability. So, one-year deals are tough. Again, I don’t know what’s gonna transpire. I’ll have to wait and see what’s out there, right? I feel like I’ve hopefully put myself in a good position, and I’ve really enjoyed being here.”

  • That’s pretty clear, right? Duchene wants a multi-year deal, and he thinks he’s earned it. And he’s right. Ironically, the team that might be the most perfect fit for him right now outside of Dallas is probably Colorado, who is likely to lose Brock Nelson and need another 2C. But those bridges are probably as burnt as they come. Duchene is being extremely clear about what he’s looking for at this point in his career: a chance to win a championship, and stability for his family. I think he believes he can have both in Dallas, but it seems clear that after two years of taking a bargain of a deal, he’d like to get a bit more commitment from Dallas. And given that he just saw Matt Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin get paid more than the team’s leading scorer this season just to be healthy scratched in the playoffs, it’s hard to argue with him.

• Duchene made some comments about how he hit a lot of goalposts, and how he had to stay focused on his process rather than the results (which he’s said has become a big deal for him more than once this year). Duchene said he was going a little crazy at the lack of results in the playoffs, and you can imagine that must have been a big blow for him, after leading the team in scoring through 82 games—often carrying them through stretches when no one else was scoring.

  • Duchene later will say that he thinks he needs to forgive himself a little bit and not be too hard on himself for how things ended. I always enjoy hearing Duchene reflect on his journey as a person and a player, and this presser has a whole lot of that in here. Some players thrive on motivating themselves through inadequacy, but he’s a different breed in this regard. Or perhaps he’s just learned some lessons that younger players have yet to learn.

• “I think the hardest summer I might ever have is if I ever do get a chance to win the Stanley Cup. You feel like you’ve had a perfect year because you won. What’s that first day in the gym look like? That’s a tough day. How do I move forward.”

  • Duchene says it can be a blessing to fall short of a goal because it can drive you to work that much harder for it. It’s a pretty insightful comment, though I can’t imagine it takes away the sting of losing much in the moment.

• When asked about the whole team’s lack of offense for long stretches, Duchene talks about the five-run Mikko Rantanen and his line went on, but that outside of that, the whole team was struggling to generate much offense. “Playoffs is such a crazy thing, because usually, in the regular season, you work your way through stuff. But when the other team is on all the time…I think a big thing too is, unfortunately we weren’t able to score first enough to make another team press a little bit more. Teams are defending leads against us, and now they’re playing better defense than even the start of the game. So now it’s even hard to score. We were chasing it a lot. What’s the solution to that? I don’t know what the solution is. Score first. Like, what do you want me to say? We were trying. It just wasn’t meant to be this year. And that might sound like I’m just passing it down the road, but that’s how tight it is in the playoffs.”

  • I appreciate when a player expresses not only part of the problem, but how frustrating it was to try to solve it. I will always prefer a player’s voicing honest frustration than restrained civility that obscures their real feelings. This was a great answer from Duchene. But you do wonder how many players will be voicing similar frustrations in internal exit interviews, and what they suspect might be the real cause.

• “And we’re such a great team. We can score. We’ve shown it. I think everyone will go home pretty damn motivated this summer […] I’m sure there’ll be some tweaks to the team. Hopefully we’re able to get all the big pieces back, and we’ll see how it goes.”

  • Those tweaks are the big question, aren’t they? The comment about getting the big pieces pack makes me wonder who Duchene would put into that category aside from himself. I presume this is mainly about him and Benn. I don’t know that he is talking about Ceci, Granlund, or Dadononv here, but I suppose he could be.

• Duchene declines to get into the Oettinger flap, but just reiterates how much the team loves Oettinger as a goalie and a person, and how he doesn’t see anything changing in that regard. “It’s tough to find much fault with him at all this season. I think what happened is, he’s trying [that is, DeBoer] to find a spark. I’m not gonna address more than that, because I love everybody involved in the situation, and it’s not on me to comment, to be honest with you.”

  • Listening to him here, I kept coming back to two things: Duchene doesn’t blame Oettinger for the Stars’ losing, and he also professes to love his coach. Benn said similar things about how great of a coach DeBoer is, and you can’t gloss over that. But then again, what a player says to the media and what they say to their GM (or assistant coaches, or head coach) are often quite different, understandably. But it’s notable, to me, that Duchene doesn’t brush this aside. He, instead, kind of tries to “stay out of it.” Which means that he thinks there is some kind of “it” to stay out of. And I don’t think players are ever going to love even the appearance of this sort of drama at the end of the season, even if they understand where everyone is coming from. Losing is hard enough as it is. Having to answer questions about who’s to blame is just an unpleasant cherry on top of a mud sundae.

• On the team not scoring enough for Oettinger, Duchene points out that it stunk for more than just the goalies: “Yeah, we hated it for everyone involved. We hated it for the D-men. I mean, you got Esa killing a gazillion minutes of penalties, and we’re not able to score enough for him, for Jake, for, you know, the city. I mean, we’re so grateful to have the fans we have and everything, and we know how much they want a Stanley Cup here again. You feel like you let people down. You do. If you don’t feel like that, I don’t think you’re in the right headspace to win as a group.”

  • Accountability is a powerful thing. Duchene is acknowledging both how he feels (like he let his team down) and what he thinks he needs to do to move forward (forgive himself). Taking one side of that equation without the other is disingenuous; players feel all of these things at the same time.

• “I mean, you wanna talk about immortal, statue-out-front-of-the-rink type person, and player, and leader, that’s Jamie Benn. That’s probably the best way I can put it.”

  • Duchene talks about he good times he’s had with Benn this year, and also says he thinks it would be “a crime” if Benn isn’t a Dallas Star for life. And I’ll keep reiterating what I’ve said on this front: Tom Gaglardi bought this team right after Mike Modano ended his career in Detroit, and I don’t think he wants to see that situation happen with Benn. Gaglardi himself said recently that he doesn’t see Benn playing hockey anywhere but Dallas next year, and so have Jim Nill and Jamie Benn. I just think it’s too easy of a decision for Gaglardi to keep Benn in the fold. But we’ll see.¹

Tyler Seguin

(This should start at 43:35, when Seguin’s presser begins, but if not, just skip ahead to that mark or watch the Seguin clip at the Stars Website.)

Full disclosure here: I wasn’t in the room for Seguin’s availability because I was talking to Roope Hintz² at the time, so I can’t give you firsthand impression of Seguin’s body language other than what we see on camera. But his words alone speak volumes, so let’s get into them:

• “I think, especially on paper, one of the best, if not the best Stars team that I’ve been a part of. I think that’s what’s the most frustrating part of being in this position now. Obviously, great run, and being one of the last three or four teams is incredible. But still trying to get over that hump.”

  • Losing in the third round once was understandable two years ago, though the Benn/Stone thing made it more painful. Losing last year hurt a lot, I think, because of how much better the Stars team felt they were than the team that eliminated them. But losing again, and in even more frustrating fashion, really does feel like it’s making them question everything about what is needed to get beyond that point. Seguin included.

• “That’s a big question. It could be a long answer,” Seguin says of playing with Jamie Benn. “How long has it been? Twelve years with him?” Seguin then goes on to talk about seeing Benn’s growth as a person (now a dad and husband), as well as a leader. “Just trying to get this job done for a guy like that. Just trying to share that championship, and that feeling with him. I was fortunate doing it in my first year [in Boston], and just knowing what that means as an older guy now. Knowing what that means for a group, whether it’s having the same text thread with that team in Boston ‘til this day, and seeing the older guys that are now retired or living on a boat somewhere, and just that bond you get from being successful together. That’s what we’re chasing here, and that’s what Jamie deserves for what he’s been through here in Dallas. But playoffs in hockey don’t care what you deserve.”

  • Jamie Benn is in that “win it for Joe” category that Pavelski was over the last few years, but in a more unique sense, given his decade-plus alongside Seguin. I wrote about this a little while back, but man, Seguin really summarizes it all here with some beautiful examples. There is a sort of forever bond you make when you reach the top of the mountain, as anyone from the 1999 Stars team will tell you. And Seguin wants Benn to know how that feels. I really can’t imagine how special that must be, but I’d imagine that some of my friendships from college (20 years ago, now) are the closest comparison I could draw upon. There is something impossibly sweet about being able to reflect on the good old days with good, old friends.

• Seguin said before his surgery that he thought this would be the most interesting year of his career. On Saturday, he answers a question by saying that he really thought this was going to be the year. I can’t imagine how disappointing that must be, but then, professional athletes are unimaginably more resilient than I am in many ways, probably.

  • Also Seguin, on his recovery: “I felt like I kept getting better. I have mobility I haven’t had since I was probably 13, so hips feel good.” Seguin says he has a month or two left of his recovery training, so his offseason will be a busy one, but a good one. The Stars basically got exactly what they were hoping for when Seguin had hip surgery last fall: he returned in time to contribute, and he scored some huge goals in the playoffs. Even if the Stars as a whole wish they had made it farther, Seguin’s overtime winner (and breakaway goal in Game 1 of the WCF) are things that makes this run a special one in a broader sense for longtime fans.³

• On Jamie Benn: “We’ve been through so much. I don’t know if we were immature back in the day, but we’re probably a lot more mature these days. I don’t know what his plan is. He’s a secretive guy in that way. Maybe talk to him over the next few days, but there’s not a guy that wants to win more, especially here, than him. We love having him as our captain, and I think he enjoys it too. So, hopefully that sorts itself out.”

  • Jamie Benn is a bit coy, sometimes. He kept the news of his son’s birth secret (sort of) for a good many days before his wife finally announced it on Instagram, even though his teammates knew about it. But in this case, I really do believe that Benn is respected so highly that nobody is going to be prying about his next deal. This is something for Benn to sit down with Jim Nill and talk about over the next little while. Those conversations must be pretty special ones, given what they’ve both seen over their time here together since 2013.

• On Pete DeBoer, Seguin says: “I’ve had multiple coaches in my career. Not to put them down, but [DeBoer] is still my number one. I think he’s one of the best coaches in the league, and résumé speaks for itself. Where he got this group over the last few years, probably quicker than we all thought, really […] There’s a great system there in place. There’s a lot of belief. There’s a lot of care and love for each other, and that all happened pretty quickly. So, you know, love Pete.”

  • If I’m interpreting this right, Seguin says 2024-25 probably have been the first year they would have expected to make it this far, let alone having made it the two years prior as well. This is pretty glowing praise, honestly. That doesn’t mean Seguin might not still have his disagreements with his coach—I’m sure any veteran player will have their opinions about some things—but it’s clear that Seguin has enough perspective to recognize just how successful the Stars have been since the day DeBoer arrived. Given that Seguin played for Claude Julien, Lindy Ruff, Ken Hitchcock, Jim Montgomery, and Rick Bowness, he has a decent assortment of coaches to compare DeBoer too, as well. In other words, I think DeBoer is probably like any fairly successful boss: not everyone is going to like him, but the more perspective you have, the most you recognize his strengths alongside his imperfections. And no one can deny that DeBoer’s strengths are many. (And of course, even if he does have quibbles, it doesn’t do Seguin much good to talk about his coach’s imperfections on camera.)

• “Why we’re good is because we have this kind of layered group of ages, almost. We’ve got the older guys, which is Jamie and [Dadonov], and then we’ve got me *laughs*. But no, we have this, like, kind of different section, different group. I think that’s why we’re good, because we can kind of figure out everything from what’s relevant on TikTok to politics, we kind of hit it all. And that’s why we’re good, and that’s why we’re gonna continue to be good. There hasn’t been a big transition period, and that goes back to Jim, obviously, and how good of a GM he is.”

  • This is something Seguin deeply believes, I think. He said almost the same thing to me back in February, talking about how the the different parts of the room coalesced around a common goal, and about how they weren’t a one-note team. That can be a strength, when everything comes together. But when you have a round like that Edmonton series, it can feel like nothing is connected to anything. So, there’s a ton of potential with the diverse strengths Dallas has, but adversity is always going to test those connections.

• “I think there’s gonna be a few changes. There has to be. I’m glad that’s not my department, but you know, I think as a player, we trust in what our bosses are doing here, and we gotta focus on what our job is.”

  • Seguin is talking here, I believe, of the cap situation. The Mikko Rantanen trade means the Stars can’t just re-up all their UFAs, which was probably true anyhow. But in case you weren’t sure: the players absolutely know that next year’s team will not be this year’s team, out of necessity.

• “I learned why his nickname’s ‘Moose.’ I’ve played with some great players. I’ve played with some star players. I don’t know if I’ve played with someone at this level, being able to turn it on like he did in playoffs. But even when, at the end, when he wasn’t scoring, how detailed he was defensively, how he was in puck battles. I think it was an easier transition for him maybe than other teams, because we have a lot of Finns. We kinda are Team Finland. I think that helped. But I think that’s a guy too that, now he’s gonna get more comfortable with us, probably gonna have an even bigger voice next year, another leader that can step up. And he’s gonna make us better.”

  • Mikko Rantanen is not going to look like Nathan MacKinnon every night. If your standard for “superstar” is that every shift looks like a goal is imminent, then you’ve been watching too much Connor McDavid. But this praise from Seguin matches a consistent theme this year that I heard from players on the Stars and other teams: how impressive Rantanen’s entire game is. There really are not many players like him in the league. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Rantanen wearing an “A” next year if Duchene isn’t able to return, but, letter or no, Rantanen will have a ton of respect in that room.

• “I think maybe that’s why Pete’s touched on our losing streak to finish the season. Can you flip a switch? I typically don’t think so. Mind you, we did. Maybe that caught up to us. I would never think we’re a team that would lose three in a row, mind you, four. I think that’s a learning curve right there for us to understand that a regular season game and a playoff game is different. We’re dominant on our rush. We’re dominant in the O-zone. Some of those things aren’t there, going in to play against Winnipeg. They have big guys. They play a layered system. They’re tight. Our typical routes in the O-zone aren’t there like they would be against Detroit or, who knows, in Game 50. Maybe that’s something we take from, as a learning curve, next year, we focus on that finishing stretch. Trying to get to that playoff level a little quicker than figuring it out in the playoffs.”

  • Again, notice how Seguin cites DeBoer here. This is why I’m so annoyed by vague, unsourced Twitter reports at times. Sure, nobody is going to like to see a goalie that saved your team’s bacon thrown under the bus a bit in the final game of the season, but it’s clear that the Stars as a team recognize everything DeBoer has brought to them. That doesn’t mean there aren’t valid criticisms (there absolutely are), and it doesn’t mean these same players might have different things to say behind closed doors. But the reality here is that Seguin can point to specific sorts of plays that stopped becoming available later in the playoffs, and how the team wasn’t able to sort things out down the stretch. That’s probably as big an indictment of the coach as anything, but notice how Seguin is implicitly taking responsibility for it here while also backing up his coach’s observations about the final stretch of the regular season. That means something a lot more significant than vague reports of player unhappiness. You did not hear this sort of praise in the final days of some other Stars coaches. But of course, this praise on camera also won’t affect Jim Nill’s decisions too much, unless it matches with what he’s hearing out of the public eye as well.

1. However, I do think one key factor in Benn’s decision will be his role. It’s one thing to haggle over a dollar figure, but Benn has made over $100 million in his career. If Benn was willing to sacrifice his ice time, his power play position, and even a spot in the top-nine forward group, then I think it’s clear he’s willing to sacrifice to help the team win. The real question will just be whether Benn sees a clear role on this team. I don’t think he wants to be a figurehead, and I really don’t think he wants to captain a team if he’s getting healthy scratched on the regular or anything like that. So it seems to me that it’s likely to be a more complex conversation than just one about a dollar figure. In actuality, the dollars might be the easiest part of it. But who knows?

2. This was when Hintz told me his foot had indeed been fractured.

3. I’ve seen some people talk about how the Stars need to look at moving Seguin’s cap hit, but man, I just don’t see it. Seguin is as important a figure in that room as anybody right now (with or without Benn), and he’s also shown he can still contribute on the ice. If he’s back to healthy next season, the Stars will need him. He also has a full no-move clause, so talking about trading him is kind of silly in a practical sense, too.