How Tyler Seguin’s Recovery and Lian Bichsel’s Readiness Will Affect Whom the Dallas Stars Target at the Trade Deadline

The Dallas Stars are a very good team with championship aspirations. You can’t really finish in the final four of the NHL two years in a row without being in that conversation, and with another solid (albeit imperfect) start to the season, there’s every reason for the Stars to be preparing for another crack at a Stanley Cup run this spring.

The team is tied for the second-most regulation wins in the league, and they have the third-best goal differential in NHL, even better than the red-hot Minnesota Wild. So despite the power play struggles and the lack of dramatic comebacks, it’s been a very all right start to the season, indeed.

But this season isn’t about the first 82 games. As with any successful organization, the goal is to hang some fresh laundry in the rafters at the end of the year. Naturally, that means Jim Nill’s job is to determine what worked and what didn’t in prior years, and make the necessary adjustments.

In his new blog, Jeff Marek cites internal sources with the Dallas Stars as being united in their view that this is “THE year” for the team to go all-out for a championship. I’ll put a portion of his piece here with the bolded emphasis mine:

With the unfortunate Tyler Seguin injury, GM Jim Nill is planning to be aggressive with his cap space. Internally, the feeling is this is THE year to go for it, and everyone from owner Tom Gaglardi on down is aligned. And I mean big-name, big-ticket players both up front and on the back end.

And if you’re going to get, you have to give, It will be tough for Nill to hang on to Dallas’ big three young stud prospects – Logan Stankoven, Mavrik Bourque and Lian Bichsel. Dallas will certainly try, but this is going to be a challenge.

That’s a pretty unambiguous statement from a media veteran who has historically been in-the-know when it comes to Dallas moves. And it wouldn’t be uncharacteristic at all for Jim Nill to make a big splash, as a gM who has gone after “big-name” players in the past like Tyler Seguin, Jason Spezza, Patrick Sharp, Alex Radulov, Joe Pavelski, Chris Tanev, and even John Tavares, if you go back to 2018.

When a team is on the cusp of great things the way Dallas is, it’s only natural for a team to look for “proven” players to get them across the finish line. That doesn’t mean the name-brand value always holds up, but it’s a sign of a team willing to make short-term moves for long-lived glory.

The thing I can’t escape is how interconnected any big move for Dallas would necessarily be with their larger roster construction, both present and future. It’s not as simple as just getting any such “big-name” player. It also means subtracting big assets. And even more importantly, it means fitting them into your current roster.

With Seguin out presumably for the regular season at least (though we wait on official word from his doctors via the Stars on his prognosis), the Stars only have four right-shot forwards in their lineup: Logan Stankoven, Wyatt Johnston, Colin Blackwell, and Mavrik Bourque.

Now, Evgenii Dadonov can also play on his off-wing just fine, but the Stars very much like to have a lefty and a righty on every forward line to maximize their strong-side faceoff matchups. Dadonov isn’t a faceoff guy, but Bourque has yet to really grab hold of a spot higher than the fourth line this year. And with Logan Stankoven moving up to play in Seguin’s spot next to Matt Duchene, the Benn line has tended to have Sam Steel and Dadonov on it, who are also both left-handed shots.

So right away, the Stars probably view their third line as needing some kind of upgrade in right-handedness, if Bourque isn’t able to get there (which is one reason I think Marek mentions Mathieu Olivier, who is a right-hand shooting bottom-six player). That’s just something to keep in mind, but let’s move on to names in general rather than using that as our first priority for forwards.

Right now, Marek goes on to say, the Stars are looking to “get tougher” at the bottom of the lineup. He mentions Olivier in Columbus, about whom I would be wary (he feels like Tanner Jeannot by another name), but you could see that sort of player fitting what so many NHL GMs covet as they seek to make their team “tougher” for the playoffs.

But if we’re still thinking big here, I’d expect the Stars to be looking for a player more in the the Brock Nelson mold (or even Nelson himself, if they could manage it). But it makes sense that they’d wait until after the Four Nations tournament to do so, with the trade deadline not until March 7 this year. And you just know that every other playoff GM would love to add Nelson or a comparable player themselves, so the price will be incredibly steep.

Nelson is a pending UFA, so he would be the ideal sort of asset if you think Tyler Seguin will be ready to go in the playoffs and/or next season, when the Stars would need to fit his cap number back in. He’s a left-shot center, however, so you’d still need to find a right-hand shot to put him with, if you can. It’s not absolutely necessary, though.

In a perfect world, Seguin would return for the playoffs, and you could have a third line with Jamie Benn, Brock Nelson, and Logan Stankoven. But that feels pretty unlikely, given everything that would have to break (and heal) just right. Still, here’s what that playoff roster could look like, should all the stars align (astronomy pun):

Robertson-Hintz-Johnston
Marchment-Duchene-Seguin
Benn-Nelson-Stankoven
Dadonov/Bäck-Steel-Blackwell/Bourque

It’s hard not to notice that any serious playoff roster projections, right now, don’t have Mavrik Bourque in the top nine forward group Again, there’s still a couple of months for Bourque to show he can hold down a spot higher in the lineup, but if he continues to find his way back onto the fourth line, I think you’ll continue to see his name included in any hypothetical trade for a big-name player, as Marek alluded to.

So, Nill has to balance all of these factors in any potential trade: When and if Seguin can return for the playoffs, How reliable Mavrik Bourque will be, How important faceoff handedness is, and How Big The Team Needs to Be.

Oh, and the power play probably needs an extra forward added in Seguin’s possible absence, too. So make sure the big forward you bring in can help it out.

Finally, I have to think Jason Robertson’s playoff readiness is also looming in the back of the minds of the Stars’ brain trust. Robertson’s scoring has decreased in the postseason, historically, with him and Jamie Benn being just one point apart last spring. If Robertson’s scoring continues to be absent in the regular season, can they really afford to hope he’ll be more of an offensive force when things get even tougher?

That’s just something to ponder, right now. But if the Stars are contemplating even bigger swings than anyone is guessing in hopes of finally getting to the Cup Final this year, I have to think everything is on the table.

***

At the moment, however, the Stars’ biggest need is probably where it has been for years: on the blue line. So let’s talk about what makes this just as tricky to address as adding a forward, if not moreso. The number of true right-handed defense targets is a slim one, so let’s use Cam Fowler as an example, given his reported availability.

Right now, Dallas would have just over $6 million in cap space at the trade deadline, should they continue to accrue salary cap space by not putting Tyler Seguin on LTIR and only using 21 or 22 players on their roster, rather than the full complement of 23. Fowler makes $6.5 million this year and next, and he’s a 33-year-old left-shot defenseman who fits the “big name” description. Whether his play still bears up under that level of expectation is something I’m not so certain about, as his play really has appeared to deteriorate this season, but skip that for now.

If Dallas were to acquire Fowler, whom do you move back in exchange? He probably wouldn’t require a top-tier prospect like Bichsel in exchange, but since the Stars don’t have their second-rounder next year (that went to Chicago in the Max Domi/Anton Khudobin trade), Nill probably would have to either give up a (presumably) late first-round pick, or else try to swing a deal for a second from next year with an A-/B+ prospect and another later-round pick, at the very least. Remember, Tanev went for a second and a third and a prospect Calgary loved, so even if you think Fowler isn’t quite as valuable as Tanev, he also has an additional year of team control. That’s the ballpark we’d be in, at least.

A Fowler move that wouldn’t require LTIR-ing Seguin if you waited a couple months and Anaheim retained some salary, but here’s the trickier thing: where is that new defenseman playing? And, more importantly, where would Lian Bichsel play if you do acquire such an asset?

Bichsel is a huge, huge factor in any trade for a defenseman. The Stars have three left-side defensemen who are going to be here for a while in Thomas Harley, Esa Lindell, and Miro Heiskanen. If Bichsel gets promoted at any point, that makes four LHD, which ensures that one of those players, and probably Heiskanen, is on their off-side. That’s a reality the Stars pretty clearly tried to circumvent this summer by getting Matt Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin to complement Nils Lundkvist, but with very mixed success, given the fact that Esa Lindell and Ilya Lyubushkin have been playing beside Heiskanen lately. Those are two combinations that work well enough on a night-to-night basis, but they are far from ideal in a playoff series.

The Lian Bichsel question isn’t terribly easy if you acquire a right-handed defenseman, either. Some Stars fans would immediately want to find a way to get rid of Matt Dumba in any such move, as he has struggled early on, but even if Nill did so, what then? Let’s say the Stars somehow got Rasmus Andersson (who shouldn’t be available if the Flames stay in playoff contention, and maybe not even if they don’t). That would be a nice-looking pairing with Heiskanen up top, and then you could have Lindell-Lyubushkin up next.

But who’s your third pair, then? Thomas Harley and Lian Bichsel are both lefties, so you’d be consigning one of them to their off-side if they’re both there. And do you really think this will be the year Pete DeBoer finally give Lundkvist regular reps in a critical playoff series if he has a 6’6″ option who can skate like Bichsel sitting there? Would he even trust Dumba on a third pairing, if Bichsel is ready to follow Thomas Harley’s path and gate-crash the playoffs?

It’s why the Stars have to figure out what they have in Bichsel as soon as they can. Nill was fine promoting Stephen Johns late in the season back in 2015-16 when he became a playoff staple, and likewise with Thomas Harley even later, just two years ago (though Harley had gotten 34 games in the regular season the year before).

So if Bichsel is going to be ready for playoff duties this year, then the Stars would have four lefties on defense. That practically forces the Stars to limit their search to right-handed defensemen. But if Bichsel isn’t quite ready, then Dallas would have more flexibility. It wouldn’t be ideal, as they’d still have one of Lundkvist or Dumba on a third pairing along with Heiskanen presumably on his off-wing next to Lindell or Harley on the top pair, but it would be possible to add a left-handed defenseman like Fowler if Bichsel isn’t ready.

So that would look like this, if (say) Lundkvist were sent to Anaheim in such a trade, hypothetically:

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lyubushkin
Fowler-Dumba
Smith

Personally, I think the most likely outcome is for the Stars to count on Bichsel, then to also get a big-ish forward name that requires using Seguin’s LTIR, then another forward for the bottom-six as well as a veteran right-handed defenseman for the bottom four. Seguin might return for the playoffs, but let’s be skeptical for this paragraph and project he doesn’t return until the second round.

But just to be a bit provocative, consider this: I wonder if the Stars would consider moving Bichsel for a right-handed defenseman with more term. Would you make that trade if Calgary offered Rasmus Andersson, for instance? I don’t think I would, given how high Bichsel’s ceiling could be. But then again, if this is the Stars’ year to go for it, but Bichsel doesn’t look quite ready, how patient do you really want to be? The Stars just don’t have all that many trade chips in their system right now, unless some other team is coveting another under-the-radar player like the Flames were Artem Grushnikov last year. So, I think it behooves the Stars to decide whether Bichsel is more valuable for their current Cup window, or as a blue-chip prospect in a trade for a star player who would be here for a while.

(This is where I’m obligated to mention Jarome Iginla and Joe Nieuwendyk, but guess what, I’m my own boss on this web site, so I’m not going to. Although I guess I just did. But Nevertheless!)

***

Okay, let’s end on a boring-but-plausible outcome for Dallas’s roster this year. Remember a couple of years ago when they got Max Domi and Dadonov while promoting Harley? Think about a roster along those lines, except with a big-name forward like Nelson rather than Domi, an additional defenseman like Alex Carrier or something (let’s say in exchange for a draft pick along with Dumba to make rosters balance), and with a larger forward than Dadonov, like Olivier. That’s just an example of an outcome that doesn’t seem outlandish, to me.

So that would look like this, hypothetically:

Robertson-Hintz-Johnston
Marchment-Duchene-Stankoven
Benn-Nelson-Dadonov
Bäck-Steel-Olivier
Blackwell, Bourque

Harley-Heiskanen
Lindell-Lyubushkin
Bichsel-Carrier
Smith, Lundkvist

That’s not a bad roster, but is it a championship one? Well, that depends more on the players already on the roster than the likely additions, I think.

And that’s where I keep coming back to, with all of the talk about how to use Seguin’s cap hit. The Stars as constructed need either a massive trade to really feel like they’ve taken a step closer to that truly elite tier, or else they need the players already on the roster to start taking massive steps themselves (or at least to stop going backwards.)

The coaches always say that the players are the ones who decide who gets in the lineup, and I think that’s true to an extent. But when it comes to the biggest moves of all, Jim Nill has to make the final decision. And how those decisions will ultimately be judged will be determined by the players, all the same. It only remains to be seen which players those will be. I suppose that’s why we watch the games.