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Dallas Stars Daily Links: Cap Wizardry

It proved challenging, but the Stars were able to make the most of their cap space amidst a COVID-19 breakout. Plus, the new season is underway, how rookies may take center stage this year, and more.

Thanks to a COVID-19 outbreak that hit the Dallas Stars’ training camp, General Manager Jim Nill was forced to get creative with his team’s “opening night” roster. Making the team cap compliant was easy thanks to LTIR — it was maximizing their available cap space that proved difficult:

The Stars placed goaltender Ben Bishop ($4,916,667 cap hit) and defenseman Stephen Johns ($2,350,000) on LTIR before the season, allowing the team to exceed the salary cap by $7,266,667 on the roster the team submitted Tuesday to the NHL. But once the season began, any unused portion of that would go away, and the Stars would be left with $0 in cap space.

Thanks to some front office cap wizardry, the Stars were able to use up all but $227 of that cap space. They will have to clear some room for when Bishop eventually comes back from LTIR, but that won’t be a problem:

With almost every signed player counting toward the Stars salary cap as it is, the team stands to receive plenty of space because of the presumed mass exodus of players to Texas once the Stars finish COVID-19 protocols.

You can read more from Matthew DeFranks here:

Stars Stories

Andrew Cogliano and his wife talk about what it’s like to balance pregnancy, an NHL schedule, and a pandemic:

Thanks to the circumstances, Thomas Harley and Ty Dellandrea could be around for the long haul this season:

Around the League

Hockey is finally back!* Here’s how things have gone so far in the new Discover NHL® Central Division:

  • The Tampa Bay Lightning kicked off their season on Wednesday with a 5-1 drubbing of the Chicago Blackhawks. [Raw Charge]
  • Yesterday, the Carolina Hurricanes unsurprisingly shut out the Detroit Red Wings 3-0. [Canes Country]
  • Meanwhile the Nashville Predators scored three of their own, beating the Columbus Blue Jackets 3-1. [On the Forecheck]/
*Does not apply to Stars fans

It feels like every year, the NHL’s younger stars shine brighter and brighter. Could that be taken to the extreme this season with this year’s rookie class?

Keith Yandle has the longest active iron man streak, but could that be in jeopardy this season?

Henrik Lundqvist update:

Finally, a helmet sponsor that actually rocks:

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