A Whole Bunch of Trade Deadline Thoughts about the Dallas Stars

Are the Stars Buyers? Big Game Hunters? Stay-ers?

The NHL Trade Deadline is Friday at 2:00pm Central. If you haven’t had this date and time burned into your brain since January, I really don’t know what to tell you.

We’ve seen a fair few moves already, and we’ll see a good bit more as the deadline forces teams to make decisions. That means Jim Nill will be able to get clarity from teams that are currently trying to drive prices as high as possible, and the Stars will know, at the last, what players they can actually afford with the price they’re willing to pay.

But it is not Friday at 2:00pm Central yet (unless you’re reading this from the future). It is Now, Today. And before everything all goes down, I wanted to give you my best estimation of where the Stars really are in all of this.

We’ll break this up into three parts: What the Stars Need to Do, What the Stars Can (actually) Do, and What I Think the Stars Are Most Likely To Do.

What the Stars Need to Do

Let’s start with the forwards. Despite the rumblings about Mikko Rantanen—who would make the Stars better if they got him, albeit at a hefty price—I don’t think the Stars need help at forward. They’re scoring like crazy, and that’s not just a virtue of a hot streak or weak competition. Their power play is 4th in expected goals per 60 minutes, and even their actual power play results are now approaching top-ten in the NHL after their scorching winter revival that brought them from near the bottom of the league to racing up the charts. And they currently have the best penalty kill in the NHL (despite going 3-for-6 in two games against New Jersey this year, for whatever reason).

Dallas have scored a lot for the past three years. They’re the 4th-best 5v5 scoring team in the NHL, which bodes especially well for the playoffs, when you can’t always count on getting the same standard of penalty called. And while scoring in today’s NHL is far from a forwards-only responsibility, they are most often the players who have the final step in the process to complete. If Dallas has to use only the 14 forwards on their roster (I’m including a presumably able-bodied Tyler Seguin), they have a decent group already.

But if Seguin isn’t able to return at full health (as anyone who watched his attempted return in 2016 surely remembers)? Then the Stars are only one or two cold snaps or injuries away from looking like a one-line team again. And as we know all too well, this team isn’t immune to the vicissitudes of playoff goal-scoring.

The Stars do not need more forward help, right now. But they might need it in the playoffs, if something goes wrong. To that end, could you see them going out to grab this year’s version of Evgenii Dadonov (like, for example, Kyle Palmieri) just to move every other right winger down a slot on the depth chart? I guess I could, in a vacuum.

Well, actually I couldn’t see anything in a vacuum, because I would be unable to breath or anything. Space is a vacuum, and I’ve heard it’s extremely difficult to get any work done up there.

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The Stars do need more depth on defense. This is no secret. It is the opposite of a secret. Your cousin on vacation in Borneo has asked you when the Stars are going to get some more defensemen up in here.

More specifically, the Stars need six defensemen who can reliably take shifts against the other team. This is called “a hockey lineup.”

It’s no secret that Pete DeBoer has a high bar to clear for his third-pairing defensemen in the playoffs. Just ask Colin Miller two years ago, Nils Lundkvist last year, or (likely) Matt Dumba this year. DeBoer won’t tolerate mistakes in the fine margins of a playoff game, and like it or not, that means some defensemen just won’t be used the same way, if at all, when the Stars in a series.

The greatest need for Dallas is Chris Tanev, and *holds finger to ear* …ah, sorry. The Stars’ second-greatest need is at least one more viable, top-six option, should one or two of their current options miss a game (or more) during the postseason. If that’s a top-four option that can bump other players down the lineup, that would be a major coup.

But unless Nill is planning on trading for Brandon Tanev and pulling a Freaky Friday to get Chris back after all, that seems unlikely. So the Stars will probably keep doing what they’ve done this year: Lean on their three best defenders, and cycle through their other three defenders situationally.

Right now, Cody Ceci is the presumptive heir to Tanev’s spot in last year’s playoff group, and Ceci isn’t the greatest option to play heavy, defensive minutes per night against the best teams in the West. But he is an option, and that’s better than what they had before.

Ceci has played second-pair minutes out of necessity since his arrival (and done better than you think in them), but the Stars saw first-hand how Ceci can be taken advantage of in the intensity of a seven-game series last year when he was in Edmonton. Ceci is looking like he’ll be asked to step up and fill that 2RHD role as best he can, but I do think he’s more ideally placed on a third pairing where he can also help kill penalties. Much like…

…Ilya Lyubushkin, who has played far above expectations this season. Pete DeBoer and Alain Nasreddine have kept Lyubushkin playing third-pairing minutes as much as possible, so I’d expect that to continue. Though if he keeps scoring beautiful goals, I say he gets to start running the power play meeting.

But the real question here is the name we haven’t discussed so far: Lian Bichsel.

Before his final recall, our assumption was that the Stars were hopeful that Bichsel could round out their defensive group in the playoffs. That seems even more likely now, but boy, the options behind Bichsel are clearly less than desirable for DeBoer.

In order to avoid the five-defensemen-by-default troubles of last spring should they lose a body for a game or more, I think the Stars do need a better option than Smith, Dumba, or Alex Petrovic in the (inevitable) event that the Stars have to call upon another defenseman.

If you have to go two deep, then Dumba or Smith should be able to spell your lineup for a game or two, in limited minutes. But I think the Stars could do with a bit of insurance above them, even if it’s a player that doesn’t play every night. Henri Jokiharju is a name we’ve mentioned before. It is possible we will mention him again.

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One quick note on the goaltending: Magnus Hellberg has been great for Texas this season, and he’s a very reasonable option as an emergency third-string goalie, should such a terrible thing be needed. But I don’t know that the Stars would spend assets just to get insurance, right now, so let’s assume the goaltending is set for this run.

Should they make a move to get some insurance? Well, that’s a different question. But I don’t think they will, for now.

What the Stars Can Afford to Do

It’s a lot of fun to go to the mall (hi, it’s Robert from 1992), but it’s more fun when you actually have money to spend. And after the Ceci/Granlund trade, the Stars have been looking to spend the equivalent of a half-used Dave & Buster’s gift card and a handful of change. They just don’t have a ton of extra draft picks left to spend, and a similarly small number of immediately desirable prospects below the NHL level right now (though not undesirable, either).

Their system isn’t completely barren. Emil Hemming has a lot of value for all of the reasons it would be foolish to trade him now: he’s so young that his ceiling hasn’t changed all that much since his draft day, even if he hasn’t blown the doors off every game he’s played in. But right now, their best young players are all in the NHL, and that means most teams would want those same names in trade, rather than players currently farther away, or farther along in their careers.

So, the Stars could trade a (probably 2026) draft pick or two to a selling team for a rental like Reilly Smith that the team would otherwise lose for nothing. Anything beyond that means trading the nascent core of your prospect system, your young NHL players, or players with little NHL value who will net the same in return.

In other words: the Stars probably don’t have more Artem Grushnikovs in their system whom other teams covet disproportionately, and who can net game-changing players as a centerpiece of a package.

Barring a major sort of deal sending big players the other way, they can only afford to get marginal upgrades. If the Stars need a bottom-four defenseman and possibly one more forward, then they’d have to be shopping in the discount grocery store to get them. And I’m not sure they’ve even want to do that.

One crazy idea: could the Stars use their cap space to facilitate a trade between two other teams, and receive a minor rental player themselves in return for doing so? I said it was a crazy idea, after all.

What I Think the Stars Are Most Likely to Do

One thing I think you can’t ignore is this: the Stars have a chunk of cap space just waiting for them to use this year. And that chunk could get even bigger if Heiskanen goes on LTIR along with Seguin. Any NHL GM would have a very tough time missing out on the opportunity to pack your team full of more great guys than the other team. Health is just too much of a factor in the playoffs not to watch as much extra help as you can find.

Here’s the other thing, though: Lian Bichsel is ready to taste the NHL playoffs. I really believe that. Thomas Harley was a bit older when he came back up for the playoffs two years ago, but less than a year older. Bichsel has acquitted himself well enough in early action to get a chance to play in the NHL postseason, and if you go out and grab someone like David Savard, Bichsel is all but certain to get squeezed out of the lineup as a result.

That’s fine, if you’re doing so because you genuinely improved your team so much that you don’t mind Bichsel sitting for some games. But given the prices for such players, I doubt the Stars are getting soemone like Savard, unless they get him for so little that he gets immediately scratched while the Stars wait for a rainy day.

So unless Seth Jones files for legal separation from Florida after smelling what humidity does to the summer, I think the Stars are more likely to follow Jim Nill’s philosophy and grab someone for their “In case of emergency” blue line go-bag for extra defensemen that I haven’t seen, but of which I have deduced the logical existence. I think the Stars would like another defenseman, but I think they aren’t likely to pay all that much for one.

And if you’re talking about just adding a marginal defensive depth player, then that means you might have slightly more capital you’re willing to use in order to add another player at forward.

That’s where I think some of the forward rumors have been coming from lately: Dallas is looking at where they can get the most bang for their LTIR buck, as any diligent GM should. Knowing the market is how you exploit the market, even if that means every phone call you make turns into a report about your being “in talks with Team X about Player Y.” It would be silly if Nill hadn’t been inquiring about every player out there that could reasonably help his team.

I think the Stars’ highest priority is on defense, but I also think that’s a very conditional priority: if they can find a cheap rental defenseman that helps them sleep better at night in case another blueliner wakes up with the flu, then great. That’s worth a fourth-round pick, if last year was any indication.

And if the Stars end up 1) Not finding such a player, or 2) Finding one for such a low price that they have assets still to spend, then I think Dallas would look at acquiring a quality NHL forward, should one be available.

That would mainly be in order to provide cover for players like Bourque, Stankoven, or Bäck, though. And here is the part where you realize I’ve been basically telling the Stars to trade for Colin Blackwell, who has been scratched for three games.

Mikael Granlund has already made the top-six pretty crowded already, and if/when Tyler Seguin comes back, you could have a real logjam on your hands if you’re not careful. That’s also why Mikko Rantanen or, say, Brad Marchand (injury aside) seem unlikely, right now. The required outlay for that net gain just doesn’t make sense unless you’re moving NHL pieces out of your lineup, too. Would the Stars do that?

Honestly, that’s the one thing I’m not certain about. My hunch is that the Stars are going well enough right now that Nill wouldn’t want to affect the team chemistry by moving any significant piece out, even for an ostensible upgrade.

So that means adding pieces that are both budget-friendly and not too starting-lineup-spot threatening, and yeah, did the air just get let out of the balloon? A little bit.

You can talk yourself into adding almost any player, until you know the price. But given the budget the Stars are shopping with in terms of assets, it seems more likely that they are looking for supplemental pieces, unless something drops into their lap. And Nill does have a way of doing that from time to time, though the fewer number of sellers this year does make that a bit more unlikely than usual.

I think the Stars are most likely to make a small move, with their standing pat a narrow second-most likely eventuality.

But I think Nill will look at everything, because you never know what teams will do until the clock starts ticking all the way down to 2:00pm Central Time on Friday. Urgency creates surprising deals, and the Stars should be shopping from a position of relatively great strength.

Conclusion

The Stars have some cap space burning a hole in their pocket, so they will make a move or two of some kind, absolutely. The opportunity cost of not making this team even the tiniest bit better if such a move is there to be made is just too high to ignore. You don’t want to lie awake for another year thinking, “If only we had just one more defenseman.” You want players to feel like they gave it their best shot on the ice every night, and any GM wants to feel like they gave it their best shot on the phones, too. the ability to help one’s team is almost indistinguishable for the obligation to do so, given certain parameters of said help.

For all of these reasons, I tend to think the Stars will get either one more decent piece (a bottom-four defenseman or a middle-six forward) or two supplemental pieces (a 6/7 defenseman and a bottom-six forward).

So, I’ll turn it over to you. If the Stars were to get nothing other than Kyle Palmieri tomorrow, would you be satisfied? What about if they got Brandon Tanev and Henri Jokiharju? Is your heart beating faster yet? Is that just the clogged arteries? I am not legally responsible for your health.

Anyway, give me your most boring-but-reasonable trade ideas in the comments, and I will fax them over to the the special filing cabinet I use for trade proposals from the internet. I’m glad we’re all working together here.