The Dallas Stars have wrapped their key offseason moves up today, as the club announced the signing of restricted free agent Roope Hintz to a new contract. The three-year deal is worth $9.45 million, carrying a salary cap hit of $3.15 million annually.
The folks at Evolving Wild projected Hintz’s contract to carry a $3.05 cap hit, which is pretty close to where the player and team ended up. The three year term means Hintz will still be a restricted free agent at the end of the deal, allowing the team to keep the salary cap hit low right now by not buying out some unrestricted free agent years. All in all, it seems like a reasonable contract given Hintz’s production the last two years and the larger role in the top six he will be expected to take on moving forward.
According to CapFriendly, the Stars had an estimated $3.4 million in cap space after signing Anton Khudobin and Denis Gurianov earlier in the offseason. Hintz’s cap hit will give them somewhere around $300,000 in salary cap space with 23 players signed for next season, including 12 forwards, nine defensemen, and two goaltenders consisting of:
Of course, that’s unlikely to be how the Stars ice their lineup at the drop of the puck next season.
As a result of their various offseason surgeries, both goaltender Ben Bishop and top center Tyler Seguin aren’t expected to be ready to play until the end of March or early April, assuming their recoveries go as planned. Either player could go on injured reserve when the Stars need to call up a forward (like a Ty Dellandrea or Jason Robertson) and goaltender Jake Oettinger, who is the most likely to be backup to Khudobin not unlike the team’s Stanley Cup Final run this summer, to fill out their starting lineup on day one of the new hockey season.
Whenever that happens to be.