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Dallas Stars Blogger •
The Stars appear to be set for the beginning of the Free Agent period. Yesterday Mark Fistric received his qualifying offer, and today the Stars have resigned Jere Lehtinen to a 1 year deal with a 1.5 million dollar base salary. The deal has 1 million in incentives as well.
How much work does Joe have in store for himself? The Stars have 13 forwards under contract, 6 defenders, and 1 goalie. The big question left is how does Nieuwendyk approach his first free agency? The budget isn't entirely known, but I can't imagine it being near the salary floor. The Texas Rangers spend 70+ million a year, and they're usually terrible. Hicks has reportedly had some financial trouble, but he values winning. He isn't going to force the Stars near the salary floor when his baseball team spends 20 million dollars more than the NHL salary cap. I don't buy it.
I don't know why, but I have a hunch that the statements Nieuwendyk has made to the media are just posturing. Nieuwendyk has said the Stars plan to build through the draft publicly. Well sure. Everyone theoretically wants to, and the Stars shouldn't be in the business of dealing top picks unless they are on the brink of a championship. The key here is that the current roster is built to win relatively soon, if not now. Just look at the teams core.
Morrow turns 31 in January. Richards turned 29 in May. Ribeiro turns 30 in February. Turco turns 34 in August. I'm not sounding the alarm. This team isn't ancient by any means, but the core of the team isn't exactly a group of spring chickens. The young talent is there to compete. James Neal, Loui Eriksson, and the young defenders are all big parts of the core going forward. The emphasis is on those three guys though. Unless the goal is to deal a core player (Ribeiro, who is signed affordably?) then the Stars need to be emphasizing that they want to win with this group. They pretty clearly need a top pairing defender. Where does that come from this system? Someone could bloom, but if they do it won't be until the core of the team is in it's middle 30's. The closest things to it on the free agent market are Jay Bouwmeester and a healthy Sergei Zubov. A Bouwmeester pursuit could be interesting, but I wouldn't count on it because of how big of a deal he will command.
Last year the Stars tried to sign Wade Redden and luckily failed. Redden would've been more of a sunken cost than Avery so the Stars did get lucky. I'm not saying they will, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to see them become aggressive in their pursuit of a defender. It might not be on Day 1, but I think we'll see the Stars heavily pursue one of the following:
Sergei Zubov: It appears the Stars will let him test the market, but surely they will make a strong push to bring him back if he doesn't get a ridiculous offer. I wouldn't be surprised to see him back next year at around 2.5 million on a one year deal.
Francois Beauchemin: He's in for a raise from the 1.6 million he made last year, but he's quality.
A couple other names to watch:
Mattias Ohlund (if he has to leave Vancouver)
Jaroslav Spacek
Nick Boynton
Jordan Leopold
Later in free agency look for the backup goalie situation to get solved. If the Stars want to pursue some right handed forwards they could, but I tend to doubt it will be a priority through the free agent market unless there is a trade somewhere.
Happy Holidays
How much work does Joe have in store for himself? The Stars have 13 forwards under contract, 6 defenders, and 1 goalie. The big question left is how does Nieuwendyk approach his first free agency? The budget isn't entirely known, but I can't imagine it being near the salary floor. The Texas Rangers spend 70+ million a year, and they're usually terrible. Hicks has reportedly had some financial trouble, but he values winning. He isn't going to force the Stars near the salary floor when his baseball team spends 20 million dollars more than the NHL salary cap. I don't buy it.
I don't know why, but I have a hunch that the statements Nieuwendyk has made to the media are just posturing. Nieuwendyk has said the Stars plan to build through the draft publicly. Well sure. Everyone theoretically wants to, and the Stars shouldn't be in the business of dealing top picks unless they are on the brink of a championship. The key here is that the current roster is built to win relatively soon, if not now. Just look at the teams core.
Morrow turns 31 in January. Richards turned 29 in May. Ribeiro turns 30 in February. Turco turns 34 in August. I'm not sounding the alarm. This team isn't ancient by any means, but the core of the team isn't exactly a group of spring chickens. The young talent is there to compete. James Neal, Loui Eriksson, and the young defenders are all big parts of the core going forward. The emphasis is on those three guys though. Unless the goal is to deal a core player (Ribeiro, who is signed affordably?) then the Stars need to be emphasizing that they want to win with this group. They pretty clearly need a top pairing defender. Where does that come from this system? Someone could bloom, but if they do it won't be until the core of the team is in it's middle 30's. The closest things to it on the free agent market are Jay Bouwmeester and a healthy Sergei Zubov. A Bouwmeester pursuit could be interesting, but I wouldn't count on it because of how big of a deal he will command.
Last year the Stars tried to sign Wade Redden and luckily failed. Redden would've been more of a sunken cost than Avery so the Stars did get lucky. I'm not saying they will, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to see them become aggressive in their pursuit of a defender. It might not be on Day 1, but I think we'll see the Stars heavily pursue one of the following:
Sergei Zubov: It appears the Stars will let him test the market, but surely they will make a strong push to bring him back if he doesn't get a ridiculous offer. I wouldn't be surprised to see him back next year at around 2.5 million on a one year deal.
Francois Beauchemin: He's in for a raise from the 1.6 million he made last year, but he's quality.
A couple other names to watch:
Mattias Ohlund (if he has to leave Vancouver)
Jaroslav Spacek
Nick Boynton
Jordan Leopold
Later in free agency look for the backup goalie situation to get solved. If the Stars want to pursue some right handed forwards they could, but I tend to doubt it will be a priority through the free agent market unless there is a trade somewhere.
Happy Holidays
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