What We Learned: Dallas Stars set up for long-term success
With the Dallas Stars opening the season white hot, and also signing their should-be-a-Vezina-guy-one-day goaltender to a surprisingly reasonable eight-year extension right out the gate, it's a good time to believe in what Jim Nill and Peter DeBoer have built these last few years.
It's easy to see why they're successful since Nill became general manager in April 2013 season. They've drafted exceptionally well, for one: nine of the Stars' regular players this season are Dallas picks, selected from 2015 to 2021, and with the exception of Miro Heiskanen (the third pick in 2017) none were drafted higher than 18th. Basically, the Stars have a hit on a first, second, or third rounder in 7 of the last 10 drafts, and a lot of those players didn't just turn into third-liners, either. In the past couple seasons, they also traded away two other drafted players who turned into NHLers (Denis Gurianov and Ty Dellandrea). Nill has run the team for like 11 seasons and really only had two 0-fer drafts. You'd take that track record any day of the week.
But just as important as drafting and developing guys who could play at the tippy top of any NHL's team lineup, they have been extremely judicious about their contract signings. Most teams would be buckling under the weight of the extremely expensive and inefficient Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn contracts. Together they make $19.35 million against the cap and even if you're an apologist for what they bring to the table at this point in their careers, you have to acknowledge the level of overpayment here. They make almost 22 percent of the Stars' cap space and they don't get much more than 16 minutes a night most of the time. Just the fact that those contracts didn't nuke the Stars' internal cap structure — that Jason Robertson or Roope Hintz didn't say "I should be making Benn/Seguin money" when their new deals came due, even acknowledging there were RFA years involved — is kind of amazing.
And because they're usually getting one legitimate NHL player (whose development floor seems to be around "middle-six forward") per draft, they are also one of those teams with a roster construction that seems to lead to plenty of chances to win the Stanley Cup. It seems to me that you need a steady distribution of ages throughout your lineup to be truly competitive these days. Many teams that make the playoffs have a large portion of the roster at or past 30 years old, another in their early-to-mid 20s, and a bit of a no-man's land in between. However, that doesn't seem to be a winning formula in the 2020s. Ideally, you would get relatively minor contributions from players 24 and under, be primarily driven by those in their mid-to-late 20s, with some older players rounding out the roster. The Washington Capitals were the last Cup winner that didn’t really fit this new winning formula. St. Louis, Tampa, Vegas, Colorado, and Florida all looked much more like the Stars in terms of player ages than, say, the 2016 and 2017 Penguins.
Because the Stars keep turning late first-round picks, like 26th overall, into legitimate rookie of the year candidates, while regularly cycling older players out of their roster, it seems to ensure they can continue being this kind of competitive in the near term. With Benn coming off the books this summer, it will be interesting to see how they allocate their money.
They'll have some players to re-sign or replace, the most notable being Wyatt Johnston, but they could end up with $10-plus million in spending money if the cap goes up in any kind of meaningful way. Which is interesting because Nill has mostly avoided spending big on the UFA market. In the past five or so years, the only really notable exception is Joe Pavelski, and you can't really question the outcome on that even if it seemed a little overpriced for a player of his age at the time.
Another way to put it is that back in the mid-2010s when people were reflexively saying "Jim Nill is having a great offseason" every summer, and it felt like wishful thinking, the fact is that he was just kinda building something. It took a long time but now it's easy to see why he's the back-to-back reigning GM of the Year. Two straight Western Conference Finals and another recentish (fake) Cup Final makes it hard to turn your nose up.
It remains to be seen how the rest of the season goes, of course, but barring disaster, the Stars seem poised for another deep playoff run. Not just this year, but probably for the next five or six at a minimum. Can you say the same, with any degree of certainty, for Edmonton? Colorado? Even Florida? It's pretty remarkable.
What We Learned
Anaheim Ducks: Say what you want about the Ducks' roster, but they've got this goaltending thing absolutely figured out.
Boston Bruins: Crazy early stat: The Bruins are getting less than a goal a game from their top three lines at 5-on-5. Eight of their 13 full-strength goals are from guys on the fourth line. Weird.
Buffalo Sabres: Probably, yeah.
Calgary Flames: Are the Flames, shooting almost 15 percent and getting .917 goaltending with a minus-9 shot difference, this year's Official Early PDO team? Well, when teams start their season with nine points from five games, they almost never miss the playoffs. Draw your own conclusions.
Carolina Hurricanes: They better hope so.
Chicago: Lots of consternation about Lukas Reichel in Chicago these days. Probably not the best sign for a team that is still bad.
Colorado Avalanche: Oh interesting.
Columbus Blue Jackets: Every season it seems like some of the best players on this team suffer long-term injuries. Awful to see this kind of news so frequently.
Dallas Stars: These guys are good.
Detroit Red Wings: The Wings have two wins in five games. They were both against winless Nashville. The locals are restless.
Edmonton Oilers: I've seen it just often enough that I'll call it a trend: We've landed on "the Oilers are too slow now."
Florida Panthers: Now is definitely the time to start extension talks with Sam Bennett; he's at almost two points a game since the Sasha Barkov injury. Buy high, I always say.
Los Angeles Kings: The Kings went 2-1-2 on that long season-opening East Coast trip. Could have been worse. They still have another road game before they finally come home, but getting back to California with six points is something you can deal with.
Minnesota Wild: I'll admit I didn't have the Wild going 3-0-2 to start the season. Pretty good, and if you really want to be impressed, don't look at who their opponents were.
Montreal Canadiens: You don't say.
Nashville Predators: Can't score. Can't get a save. So much for winning the offseason.
New Jersey Devils: They keep getting points even without the healthy blue line. Big change from last year, I notice.
New York Islanders: Brutal news.
New York Rangers: I honestly wonder when they're just gonna cut the check. Eight goals allowed on 124 shots for Igor Shesterkin right now. Can't do it much better than that.
Ottawa Senators: Hey, if they can win — no matter how ugly — when their No. 1 goalie is out of the lineup, that's all you can really ask for.
Philadelphia Flyers: Saturday was the first time the Flyers were shut out in a home opener in 25 years. Interesting stat.
Pittsburgh Penguins: I know that in the NHL, if you have two goalies, you really have none. But how many do you have if you carry three?
San Jose Sharks: Hmm.
Seattle Kraken: I'm very curious to see how long this lasts.
St. Louis Blues: They keep winning. Not sure how. They get outshot a lot, they have subpar special teams. They score and allow an average amount of goals. Is it really just "Joel Hofer is in the .930s right now?" I guess it is.
Tampa Bay Lightning: Can't be giving up two power-play goals and a shortie if you want to win. It's that simple.
Toronto Maple Leafs: I guess sometimes you just run into a hot goalie.
Utah [fill in the blank later]: This is always fun.
Vancouver Canucks: You don't want to be seeing this kind of headline.
Vegas Golden Knights: The Knights had a three-game trip out east, and ended up with just one point. Not good enough.
Washington Capitals: They had leads of 3-1 and 5-3, and still got the win. I guess you take it.
Winnipeg Jets: "No one?"
Play of the Weekend
This one has been rated "hachi machi."
https://x.com/umichhockey/status/1847439833326600676
Gold Star Award
Cole Perfetti and Vladislav Namestnikov (2-2—4 and 1-3—4 in four games, respectively) are both running at a point a game this season. And yes, all those points were against the Sharks on Friday. So what? Lots of guys don't have four-point nights against anyone.
Minus of the Weekend
I know it's not entirely his fault but it's jarring to see Juuse Saros is 0-4-0 with an .875 save percentage. What's going on down there?
Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week
User "Lemieuxfan" is trying to fix the problem:
Jarry makes 5.375, Graves 4,5 = 9,875
for
Darell Nurse 9,25
2nd rounder
