While the hockey world waits to hear where the Ottawa Senators are trading Erik Karlsson and what that deal looks like, the Dallas Stars announced they have signed young center Jason Dickinson to a one year, $875,000 contract.
The move now puts Dallas at 10 forwards under contract for next season, to go along with seven blueliners and two goaltenders. Based on Cap Friendly’s numbers, the Stars have approximately $9.8 million in cap space left. They still need to sign restricted free agent forwards Mattias Janmark, Gemel Smith, and Devin Shore to new contracts.
While those negotiations are on-going, the Stars have gone from being the front-runners to acquire Karlsson to being the runner-up to the Tampa Bay Lightning in last night’s round of rumors. But until a deal actually goes down, never count the Stars out:
With all these discussions about Tampa and Ottawa doing a deal, there is still a belief that Dallas has a chance for Erik Karlsson.
— John Shannon (@JSportsnet) July 6, 2018
So far, Nill has held firm on the non-availability of Miro Heiskanen. Last night’s seemingly imminent trade of Karlsson to the Lightning has not likely changed that stance. General manager Jim Nill is still evaluating opportunities to improve his roster heading into next season, but he does not want to hamstring the organization by trading arguably their best prospect in the past 20 years to do it, either.