The Stars and general manager Jim Nill have agreed to a two-year extension, the team announced Tuesday. Nill’s current deal was set to expire after this season, per Sean Shapiro of Elite Prospects, but it’s now clear he won’t be a candidate for any other GM vacancies this offseason.
Nill, 67, took over the GM’s chair in Dallas way back in 2013. When Doug Armstrong transitions out of his GM role with the Blues to serve as their president of hockey operations this summer, Nill will become the second-longest-tenured GM in the league behind only the Jets’ Kevin Cheveldayoff.
While the Stars have yet to win a Stanley Cup during his tenure, few would leave Nill off their list of the best of the best executives in the league. He has won the NHL’s GM of the Year award three years running and has finally emerged as a managerial fixture for Canada’s national team, serving as an assistant GM to Armstrong for their 4 Nations Face-Off championship last year and this year’s Olympic silver medal.
That’s not to say Nill doesn’t have any Stanley Cup rings. He has four of them, in fact, all with the Red Wings as their director of player development and then assistant GM to Ken Holland from 1994 to 2013.
Since Nill took the helm, he’s steered the Stars to a 549-345-125 (.600) record – the eighth-best in the league over the last 13 seasons. That includes a trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 2020 and three consecutive Western Conference Final appearances, although they’ll have their work cut out for them to get back there again this season in a cutthroat Central Division.
There’s few areas in which Nill doesn’t excel. His draft record, particularly in the mid-to-latter half of his tenure, is impeccable. He’s gotten great value out of late-first selections like Wyatt Johnston and Jake Oettinger, second-round picks like Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson, while nailing his only top-five pick with Miro Heiskanen at third overall in 2017.
There are few trades that haven’t worked out in his favor – even stretching back to his first summer on the job, when his Tyler Seguin/Loui Eriksson blockbuster with the Bruins has ended up paying dividends for his club more than a decade later. A look at the Stars’ books reveals very few negative-value contracts, aside from a free-agency misstep with Ilya Lyubushkin in 2024, which he’ll be trying to offload this summer.
Nill will now get to continue steering the ship with the Stars set for playoff and championship contention for another few years, at least. He’ll be joined by a slightly new-look group of assistants that now includes Rich Peverley – acquired as a player in that Seguin deal – who has been either behind the Stars’ bench or in their front office since a heart condition forced him into retirement in 2014.
Image courtesy of Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports.
Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet was first to report the news.