The Stars are open to the possibility of dealing winger Mason Marchment, reports David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. It’s a more palatable avenue to clear cap space this summer than moving star left-winger Jason Robertson, who Dallas has at least considered including in talks in the weeks since their elimination in the Western Conference Final.
Marchment, who turns 30 in a week, is coming off one of the better seasons of his career. He scored 22-25–47 with a +15 rating over 62 appearances in 2024-25. While he missed significant time due to a facial fracture and subsequent surgery, that was his best goal-scoring work on a per-game basis for his career at 0.35 and his second-best season in the points department at 0.76.
The left-shot winger has averaged 21 goals and 51 points per 82 games over his six-year NHL career. Injuries are a legitimate concern, having only hit the 80-game mark once, but he’s one of the more consistently effective middle-six wingers in the league when healthy, both offensively and physically. Checking in at 6’5″ and 212 lbs, he’s a willing fighter and frequent hitter while also serving as one of the more efficient per-minute point producers of the last few years.
His possession impacts leave a little more to be desired. His raw numbers look fine, but become more concerning when put in context, considering he’s spent the majority of his NHL career with a pair of strong 5-on-5 teams in Florida and Dallas. They’re not huge drawbacks – he’s averaged a -0.2 relative CF% at even strength over his career while receiving semi-favorable offensive zone deployment – but his reputation defensively likely outweighs reality a little bit.
Nonetheless, his $4.5MM cap hit provides great value to the Stars. That’s almost never a deal a championship-contending club would be looking to move, but as detailed at length, the Stars simply don’t have a path toward cap compliance next season without making a salary dump. They have under $5MM in projected space with seven roster spots to fill, meaning they’d essentially have to sign only league-minimum players this summer while letting all of their pending free agents walk.
Salary cap considerations are essentially the sole motivator behind considering moving Marchment, a pending UFA starting July 1, and Robertson, a pending RFA starting July 1. They each have one year left on their contracts and would normally have their resources devoted toward extension discussions in a few weeks, but without a chance of recouping any cost-effective assets in a deal involving overpaid defenders Mathew Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin, it appears general manager Jim Nill is looking to part ways with a player with higher trade value to try and land a cheap contributor as part of the return.
Marchment would obviously have a much lower return and asking price than Robertson, a first-line fixture who’s posted 80 points in back-to-back seasons following his 109-point breakout in 2022-23. Parting ways with the former would also have a much less transformative impact on their forward group next season. Still, if they get the right deal for the latter, it may make sense. Extending Robertson, who will presumably cost at least his $9.3MM qualifying offer per season to re-sign on a multi-year deal, would give Dallas seven players making over $8MM per season in the summer of 2026, when they need to work out a new deal for star defenseman Thomas Harley.
Carolina, if they miss on Marner, seems like an obvious fit.
This has St Louis Blues written all over it. Hate to say it but I think Carolina’s window is shutting and they may need to move on from Brind’Amour. He can’t seem to get them over the hump. Similar to Peter DeBoer.
Marchment was really undisciplined in the Edmonton series.
Wish Tampa could get Mason Marchment from Dallas as he’s the type of player they need more of for their middle-six. But I don’t think it’s a real possibility this offseason for them. But there will be a number of teams interested in him being that sandpaper kind of player teams look for.
Could be a nice 3rd line guy for a return to the Panthers. They should have the cap space after a couple of their FA leave.
Panthers won’t be able to re-sign their own players, there is no cap space
Probably not signing Ekblad unless he is going to take a big discount
He was already with the panthers. They let him walk, and it remains a good decision.
I’d be surprised if there’s not some type of deal between DAL and CHI this offseason. I don’t think the Hawks are in for any of the big FA’s and finding a controllable forward from a cap strapped team seems like the right path for them this summer. I’d be happy for something on either Robertson or Marchment but no reason for them to eat a bad D contract.
This is definately the move the Stars need to make. He just takes too many boneheaded penalties.
Not sure if Dallas would be interested anymore but if they want to make a trade how about Robertson for Marchment we’ll even throw in a 6th rnd pick to help facilitate this deal. If Dallas has say a player that can play either in a 2c position or a top four defender maybe there’s a bigger trade here if so.
I’d say that GMJN would wait until he gets a new coach before he makes any moves, but I would be 100% in on Marchment getting moved at some point. He’s been getting into the box more than scoring lately and I feel like one of the guys on the Baby Stars would be a better fit there. Hryckowian, Back, Blumel, Bourque, maybe even Antonio Stranges (lot of B’s there…) would all be better on the 3rd and 4th lines. Blumel especially I think would click with Granlund if we can keep him.
Not surprising that Pete (IMO) decided to engineer his own firing. It’s difficult to see them doing any better next year, even with Rantanen.