The Dallas Stars continued their offseason checklist yesterday with the acquisition of defensemen Marc Methot from the Vegas Golden Knights.
It was another thing to place a checkmark next to for general manager Jim Nill. He already accomplished changing the goaltending situation with the trade for the rights of and eventual signing of Ben Bishop as well as the (now official) buyout of Antti Niemi’s contract.
As they head into free agency, Dallas may have one competitive advantage over many other markets: they’re an attractive destination.
New Star Methot talked to the Ottawa Citizen about being traded Dallas and said, “If I’m to go anywhere that would have been one my prime destinations. Not that I had a choice but it worked out well. They have a great team there. They’ve got (Ben Bishop) in net now and they’ve got a good a (defensive) core, some great forwards and some veterans. It’s a great situation for me personally.”
But what do the Stars need now that free agency is upon the league?
Firstly, a top-six forward or two would be good insurance for the roster. While Mattias Janmark was quite comfortable next to center Jason Spezza on the second line before his degenerative knee issue, there’s no telling where he will be this season. Here’s where guys are most likely slotted into the lineup, and the question marks as that will be the responsibility of the coaching staff to figure out with the other guys signed and expected to be in Dallas next year – or whatever guys are acquired in free agency.
Jamie Benn – Tyler Seguin – ?
Mattias Janmark – Jason Spezza – ?
Antoine Roussel – Radek Faksa – Brett Ritchie
Curtis McKenzie – Devin Shore – Adam Cracknell
Notice one thing on the forward side? That right wing position is looking awfully thin. In the AHL, the team only has two guys listed as right wingers – Nicholas Caamano and Mark McNeill. A whole load of centers are there that they could potentially graduate and play as wingers in the NHL, such as Jason Dickinson or Gemel Smith.
So expect Dallas to be linked to a few forward options in free agency. We’ll look at guys in depth coming up this week, but the biggest right wing target is likely to be Justin Williams.
The other thing the Stars need to figure out is their logjam on defense. It’s likely to be a trade scenario to jettison someone(s) out, unless the Stars plan to waive guys at the beginning of the season and hope to sneak them through waivers to send them to the AHL (which would be a risky, weird strategy to go with).
Defense today looks like the following (subject to chemistry and coaching decisions in camp, so don’t read into the pairings too hard here):
Marc Methot – John Klingberg
Dan Hamhuis – Julius Honka
Esa Lindell – Stephen Johns
Jamie Oleksiak, Patrik Nemeth, Greg Pateryn
That’s about two blueliners too many, so the Stars are likely not done making moves to finalize their roster as of now.
They’ll have plenty of salary cap space to work with. Faksa, Ritchie, Nemeth, and Oleksiak all need new contracts and will eat up some of the space, but as of now the Stars still have about $18.3 million in cap space to work with.
That should more than net a good forward or two in free agency to shore up the roster for next season. The moves made on defense and in goal indicate the Stars are ready to get back to contention — now they just need to execute similar moves up front to get there.