What's next? The first and most important Dallas Stars offseason move

By Sam Nestler

Modified Jun 12, 2023 14:54 GMT

The Dallas Stars had an excellent season. After implementing a new system under a brand new coaching staff and bringing in plenty of new faces, the Stars found themselves just two wins away from the Stanley Cup Final.

Yet, the season still has to feel like a bit of a letdown with how much this team had going for it.

Now comes the offseason for the Dallas Stars, and a shorter one than most due to the extent of their 2023 playoff run.

What is the first and most important step for General Manager Jim Nill this summer? To lock up key players and get better.

"We had a good season," Nill said in his post-season meeting with the media. "Now the goal is we have to hopefully get better. You do that internally and maybe through some free agency, maybe through some trades. We'll see where it goes."

Jim Nill does not have a ton of work to do this summer. In terms of his key players, most of them are locked up for at least one more season. This includes Jake Oettinger, Roope Hintz, Jason Robertson, Joe Pavelski, Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, and Miro Heiskanen, among others. But there are a few names that are set to become free agents on July 1.

Dallas Stars have free-agent decisions to make this summer

Young forward Ty Dellandrea will become a restricted free agent, meaning that Dallas will still have exclusive rights to negotiations. Dellandrea took a huge step this season, playing in all 82 regular-season games and becoming a full-time NHL player. Dellandrea added two huge goals in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final to extend the series for the Stars. He will be back.

The Dallas Stars' unrestricted free agent list is more of a question mark. This list includes forwards Evgenii Dadonov, Max Domi, Luke Glendening, and Joel Kiviranta, as well as defender Joel Hanley.

For now, Nill will need to make a decision regarding multiple older, role players. Do they want to bring most of these names back? Or can Dallas replace them with cheaper young players?

The next part of this process for Nill is to determine the value of existing contracts over the available options of free agency.

While the Dallas Stars feel good about their current team, there will be options out there to make them better. The entire summer will come down to how much Nill trusts his current roster with a full season of Pete DeBoer's system under their belts.

If he feels they can improve enough with small changes, expect the faces to look relatively similar for the Dallas Stars in September.