The Dallas Stars have announced a two-year contract extension for reigning GM of the Year Jim Nill, who is entering his 11th season at the top of Stars hockey operations. Stars owner Tom Gaglardi issued the following statement regarding the extension:
Jim has proven himself to be one of the best general managers in the NHL. He has meticulously built a team through free agency, trades and the NHL Draft that’s among the best in the League, while also ensuring that the Stars are championship contenders for years to come. He’ll be able to continue his vision of working toward our goal of bringing another Stanley Cup to the state of Texas.
Although some have speculated about when Nill, 65, would retire and leave the Stars to another GM, it seems he has at the very least another two seasons in his current role. Like every GM, Nill has made his fair share of mistakes, but looking at his overall body of work it’s abundantly clear that he’s done an exceptional job building the Stars. Although a Stanley Cup has eluded them, the Stars have gone on multiple deep playoff runs under Nill’s watch, including to the 2019-20 Stanley Cup Final.
Nill could have very easily built a team to compete around their core of Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin, and then once those players regressed plunged the team into a rebuild. But instead of doing so, he proactively built a new competitive window, a new core of players for the next generation of Stars hockey while the incumbent core players were still at the top of their game.
While a significant amount of credit must also go to the franchise’s scouting staff, Nill’s 2017 draft is the stuff of legend. Armed with two first-rounders and a second-round pick, the Stars drafted Miro Heiskanen, Jake Oettinger, and Jason Robertson. That’s a franchise-defining number-one defenseman, a potentially elite starting goalie, and a game-breaking winger who recently scored 109 points in his age-23 season.
Beyond just 2017, Nill’s draft record is among the best of any GM in the NHL. He drafted a number-one center in Roope Hintz in the second round of the 2015 draft, and a player who looks like a star in the making in Wyatt Johnston with the 23rd pick of the 2021 draft, to name a few notable hits.
Although Nill has made his fair share of moves he’s likely preferred to have not made (the Ryan Suter signing from the summer of 2021 is beginning to look like a mistake) his mistakes are generously outweighed by his success stories. As Dallas Stars radio analyst Bruce LeVine put it, you may not “find a General Manager who is more universally liked and respected” than Nill, who now has two more years to chase down a Stanley Cup in Dallas.
Best GM out there. He built a team that will be competitive for years, without crippling them cap-wise. Glad to have you for another couple of years, Jim!
The Esa Lindell extension was a head-scratcher, as was the Radek Faksa deal, but Jim Nill typically drafts well.
The Lindell deal is rough and everything would have had to go right for him to live up to it, regardless of the economics of the league. Faksa’s production has fallen off, but it’s not a terrible deal as he still brings more aside from just production. I think that the Suter contract is awful and hopefully Marchment can bounce back to his prior year form after settling in a bit more.
Pretty much every GM gives out a bad contract or two. In Dallas’ case, they’ve drafted so well, that the damage is minimized, because they have a steady supply of kids on ELCs and bridge contracts. Bad contracts hurt when a team can’t improve itself because of them.
If a team doesn’t draft well, then they have to overpay in trades, or free agency, which is risky at best, disastrous at worst.
He built a foundation in the span of 3 picks in 2017. Truly awesome work.
The contracts he’s given out have been hit or miss, but he’s avoided a truly awful one. And he’s improved in the draft/development over the years.
Tough to be a GM with a minimal cap increase the last few years.
Nill is a product of the Detroit Redwings organization. It’s no surprise that he picked up a few sound management tips along the way. And fortunately he did not pick up Ken Holland’s tendency to over pay for mediocre free agents.