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Dallas Stars Daily Links: What Is Plan B If Stars Don’t Sign John Tavares?

Posted on by Adam Gaston

The Dallas Stars have a face-to-face meeting with John Tavares today, and there isn’t definitely a chance that he might decide to move to Dallas and add a much needed scoring punch. However, there is a better chance that he decides to join another franchise, and the Stars need to be ready if Tavares decides to go somewhere else. Josh Lile has a couple of names the Stars could pursue if they strike out on Tavares, and one of the names will look a little familiar to the Stars’ faithful:

This free agent class isn’t full of superstar level talent, but there are some quality players out there. Two of those players are free agents from the Stanley Cup Finalist Vegas Golden Knights: David Perron and James Neal. Perron, recently 30, and Neal, soon to be 31, were picked up in the Expansion Draft about a year ago from St. Louis and Nashville respectively. The wingers are quality players who could benefit the Stars should they miss out on Tavares.

Perron and Neal have different skill sets to be sure, but they would both help address areas of need for the Stars:

Most of that makes sense because he’s first and foremost a playmaker. Perron is on the ice to set up goals for his teammates, which he did phenomenally.

Perron did some damage on the powerplay too. 17 of his assists were with the extra man. The Stars, in need of some juice on the powerplay, would do well to add the playmaking ability of Perron.

And Neal:

Neal’s passing data profile shows him to be an exceptional player at even strength. The areas where he isn’t dominant, merely really good, are the areas dealing with setting up goals. Neal puts the puck on net with regularity at even strength.

As an irrational Neal fan, I would love to see him back in Victory Green, but both players seem like they would be good fits. See more from Josh Lile here.

Stars Stuff

Gerry Fraley wrote a great article about the incredible journey of Stars’ seventh round pick Jermaine Loewen, the first Jamaican-born player ever selected in the NHL Draft. [SportsDayDFW]

This article exploring the how and why the Stars would sign John Tavares is a few days old, but has a lot of great info (and was updated yesterday). [SportsDayDFW]

Today is a big day in Stars-land:

Contract alert:

Sean Shapiro dropped some development camp videos yesterday:

He also dropped some keen observations:

Around the League

Matt Larkin updated his 2018 Free Agents list, which he says is one of the shallowest pools in recent memory:

Greg Wyshynski has a good breakdown of all of the teams that will be speaking with John Tavares:

There is one name conspicuously left out of this headline.  Also, Sergei Zubov was robbed again:

This article is from a couple years ago, but it’s certainly worth revisiting after yesterday:

Hmmm….:

Also:

Vernon Fiddler weighed in as well:

Jared Clinton took a look at the league’s RFA’s:

The Pittsburgh Penguins ensured that Bryan Rust will be comfortable financially for the foreseeable future:

Talking Points