Stars, Avalanche Among Favorites To Acquire Canucks’ Evander Kane
The Vancouver Canucks are once again busying up with the Trade Deadline around the corner. A focal point this year could be moving winger Evander Kane, who joined Vancouver in a trade from the Edmonton Oilers at the 2025 NHL Draft. After not clicking in the Canucks lineup, Kane could be headed across the Western Conference, with the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche currently the favorites to make a trade per NHL.com’s Kevin Weekes.
Despite spending his junior hockey days in Vancouver, Kane hasn’t found much spark in his return to the city. He has nine goals, 57 penalty minutes, and a minus-18 in 49 games with the Canucks. He’s filled an important role in the lineup – averaging 16:55 in ice time each game, sixth among Canucks forwards – but Kane has ended up one of a few sputtering tires on Vancouver’s flanks. The club traded cornerstone defenseman Quinn Hughes earlier this season and could soon do the same with top center Elias Pettersson. With a teardown in progress, a part with the veteran Kane seems only natural.
Just as fitting are the teams in the mix for landing the former Atlanta Thrasher top pick. Both Dallas and Colorado have proved to be a comfortable spot for aging veterans. The Stars have continued to get the most out of franchise icons Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn, while Colorado has leaned on big impacts from Jonathan Drouin and Brock Nelson in recent years. Kane’s game has noticeably slowed down on the other side of 30 but still plays a professional style that could click in the right system. He has offered reliable goal-scoring throughout his career, netting at least 20 goals in nine of his last 13 seasons in the league. He has also recorded at least 80 penalty minutes in seven seasons.
That mix of grit and shooting – as well as Kane’s 979 games of NHL experience – will be what the Central Division rivals eye as they try to find a trade. Kane is set to hit unrestricted free agency this summer, which should keep his price low. Dallas has two second round picks, and one third round pick, in the next two drafts, while Colorado only has two second-round picks in 2027. Those could end up the bartering chips in a deal and Dallas holds the taller stack.
Colorado’s advantage comes in the finance books. The Avalanche will have roughly $5.089MM in cap space at the Trade Deadline, while the Stars will only have $3.267MM in space per PuckPedia. That means that Colorado will only need some cap juggling to afford adding Kane, while Dallas will need to move a minor contract.
Acquiring Kane will surely fit into a larger scheme for both teams, who seem set to buy at the Deadline after hot starts to the season. Kane will step in as a middle-six winger wherever he ends up. Joining a team headed for playoff success may even spark a final hoorah for Kane. He proved to be a hard playoff opponent in four years with the Edmonton Oilers, where he recorded 42 points and 164 penalty minutes in 68 games. That grit, and the spark of a recent move, could make Kane a timely addition in the second half.
Stars Claim, Reassign Vladislav Kolyachonok
1:45 p.m.: As expected, the Stars confirmed they have claimed Kolyachonok off waivers and have reassigned him to AHL Texas.
1:35 p.m.: Defenseman Vladislav Kolyachonok will return to the place where he began the 2025-26 season. According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Dallas Stars have claimed Kolyachonok off waivers from the Boston Bruins.
Since the Stars are the team to land Kolyachonok, they can reassign him to the AHL’s Texas Stars without needing to place him on waivers again. This was a likely scenario given that AHL Texas needs some veteran presence on its blue line.
This need was largely generated from injuries to Dallas’ defensive core. Due to multiple absences, the Stars have had to use Kyle Capobianco and Alexander Petrovic more than they were likely expecting, creating a significant gap on the AHL roster.
Although there’s an argument to be made that Kolyachonok should remain in the NHL for the time being, it’s easier for Dallas to reassign him rather than Capobianco or Petrovic, given that he’s ineligible for waivers with them specifically. Assuming he is reassigned to the AHL, Kolyachonok will look to improve upon the three assists in 10 games he’s already scored this season.
Unfortunately, he hasn’t had a truly impactful offensive season in the AHL in some time. During the 2022-23 campaign, with the Tucson Roadrunners, Kolyachonok scored three goals and 21 points in 71 games, and hasn’t gotten near those totals since.
Since then, he’s split his time between the now-defunct Arizona Coyotes, Utah Hockey Club, Pittsburgh Penguins, Stars, and Bruins, scoring four goals and 14 points in 53 games, averaging 12:51 of ice time per game. If the Stars recall him to the NHL again this season, he’ll have a 10-game window to play, or 30 days on the roster, before he’s eligible for waivers again.
Latest On Mikko Rantanen
The Dallas Stars are the latest team struck by the flu, as Mikko Rantanen will not play tonight as a result of the illness, as first reported by Tim Cowlishaw of The Dallas News. In a skid of late where they’ve dropped six of their last 10, including three in a row, the Stars will host the surging Bruins without their leading scorer, who has 63 points in 48 games.
Rantanen will look ahead to later in the week, as his Stars are in action Thursday and Friday, but do not play in the upcoming weekend. For now, Nathan Bastian will slot into the lineup, the 28-year-old posting three goals in 22 games this season in limited fourth line duty.
Agent Change For Robertson
With a big contract negotiation on the horizon this summer, Stars winger Jason Robertson has switched agents. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on the latest 32 Thoughts podcast (audio link) that Robertson (and his brother Nicholas Robertson) are now being represented by Octagon’s Andy Scott; they had both been previously repped by CAA’s Pat Brisson. The winger has 56 points in 49 games with Dallas this season, putting him on track to hit the 80-point mark for the fourth straight season. He’s owed a qualifying offer of $9.3MM with arbitration rights in late June but will likely make a few million more per season than that. Notably, Scott also represents Mikko Rantanen, Wyatt Johnston, and Thomas Harley, all of whom have signed long-term deals with the Stars within the last year.
Heiskanen Returns After Missing Thursday's Game
- After missing Thursday’s game to tend to a personal matter, Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen was back with the team at practice today, relays Sam Nestler of DLLS Sports (Twitter link). The 26-year-old is back in top form this season after a quieter 2024-25 campaign by his standards. Through 46 games, Heiskanen has 36 points and 87 blocks while averaging a career-high 26:04 per game of ice time, third-most in the NHL.
Latest On Miro Heiskanen
The struggling Anaheim Ducks will be especially short handed tonight, as Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, and Troy Terry are all absent, per Derek Lee of The Hockey News. The team updated that Carlsson has a lower-body injury and Gauthier is ill, along with Terry’s known upper-body injury.
Terry was considered a game-time decision, clearly unable to go, while Carlsson and Gauthier were last minute surprises. Lee went on to add that as a result of being down three forwards, Anaheim will have to go into an 11-forward, 7-defensemen configuration, but defender Ian Moore may slot in as a forward.
After a great start to the season, the Ducks have faltered recently, with just one regulation win in their last 10 games, and a five game losing streak. Carlsson, Gauthier, and Terry rank in order as the team’s top three scorers, so all of them out of the mix against the league’s second best team, Dallas, will make an especially formidable challenge.
In such situations, sometimes teams give undersized puck moving defenders the opportunity to move up, but if Moore plays forward, he is known as a more stay-at-home player with size. Regardless, tonight may be a night to remember for the 24-year-old.
Updates on the status of Anaheim’s three top forwards will be watched closely, as the group is back in action Friday and Saturday, with a home-and-home against their in-state rivals from Los Angeles.
Elsewhere across the league:
- Things will also be unusual in Anaheim from the other side, as the Dallas Stars announced that defenseman Miro Heiskanen will not play due to a personal matter. The 26-year-old had yet to miss a contest prior to tonight, posting 36 points in 46 games. In place of their #1 defender who averages just over 26 minutes a night, Ilya Lyubushkin will return to the lineup, who has skated 33 games this season.
- Washington Capitals forward Justin Sourdif missed tonight’s game, as he’s day-to-day with an upper-body injury, reported by Sammi Silber of The Hockey News earlier today. It marks just the second game of the campaign that Sourdif has not dressed. The 23-year-old came to Washington in a summer trade from Florida as a primary AHLer with just four NHL games under his belt. Since then he has earned a real role as a middle six forward under Head Coach Spencer Carbery. Sourdif has 19 points on the year, including a three-goal, five-point effort on January 5, and hopefully will return Thursday against San Jose. In his absence, the Capitals defeated Montreal in overtime.
Stars’ Jamie Benn To Return After Nose Injury
The Dallas Stars will add captain Jamie Benn back to the lineup in Monday night’s game against the Los Angeles Kings per Lia Assimakopoulos of The Dallas Morning News. Benn has missed the last three games with a nose injury sustained on January 4th.
Benn was seen sporting a visor during Monday’s practice, a surprising move for one of the league’s few remaining players who do not wear face protection. The NHL began requiring visors in 2013 but grandfathered in current players who choose not to wear one. 13 years later, three other players continue to not wear a visor: Ryan O’Reilly, Zach Bogosian, and Ryan Reaves.
Head coach Glen Gulutzan joked about Benn’s visor, having coached the captain in the AHL – where all players must wear visors – back in 2010, as captured by Owen Newkirk of DLLS Sports. Benn wore a visor during his rookie NHL season but hasn’t worn one since, save for one game in January 2017 after his nose was broken by a high stick, per Sam Nestler of DLLS Sports.
Dallas posted a 1-1-1 record in Benn’s absence and scored at least three goals in every game. They will welcome another offensive spark after losing Saturday’s game against the San Jose Sharks in overtime. Benn hasn’t found his usual offensive spark this season, though. He missed the start of the year due to a collapsed lung and has only scored 14 points, split evenly, in 23 games since. Most of that scoring has come in chunks since December, with Benn sporting two four-game scoring droughts split by a four-game point streak over the last month-and-a-half.
Benn’s return could prompt some shifting in Dallas’ lineup. He has spent the bulk of his time this season alongside Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson – a role that was taken over by Mavrik Bourque over the last three games. Bourque scored one point in the trial run, likely low enough to bump him back to a tandem with Matt Duchene and Justin Hryckowian, while Colin Blackwell falls out of the lineup. Benn could also return to a role on the power-play in place of Bourque or Hryckowian.
Dallas will look to snap a recent lull with their captain back in the lineup. The Stars have posted a 1-3-4 record in their last eight games, a far fall from the 8-2-1 record they posted in their first 11 games of December. Benn was a core member of the lineup through that winning stretch and should bring the Stars lineup closer to normal, though they still face injuries to Tyler Seguin and Lian Bichsel.
Stars Sign Justin Hryckowian To Two-Year Extension
The Stars announced that they have signed forward Justin Hryckowian to a two-year extension. He’ll earn an average annual value of $950K for a total value of $1.9MM.
Hryckowian, 24, was an undrafted free agent signing out of Northeastern in 2024 and is in the back half of his two-year, entry-level contract. He was technically left off Dallas’ opening night roster for cap considerations, but was called up the following day and has stuck on the big league roster ever since. He’s made 42 out of 43 appearances for the Stars, scoring six goals while adding seven assists for 13 points. He’s averaged 12:04 per game with a -4 rating and leads Dallas forwards with 66 hits.
The 5’11” lefty only suited up in five NHL games last year but otherwise impressed as a rookie with AHL Texas. He played in 67 games for the Baby Stars, finishing second on the team in scoring with 60 points (22 goals, 38 assists). That was tops among first-year AHLers and earned him the Red Garrett Memorial Award as the league’s rookie of the year.
In college, he topped a point per game in his final two seasons at Northeastern and was named the best defensive forward in the Hockey East conference in 2023 and 2024. He may have slipped under the radar earlier in his development by not making the jump to college until his age-20 season, but he’s now well on his way to carving out a role for himself as a bottom-six NHL regular.
While Hryckowian has mostly skated on the left wing in Dallas, he can shift to center fairly easily and has won 56% of his faceoffs this season. Getting a responsible third or fourth-line piece who still has a little bit of untapped upside signed for six figures for multiple seasons is an expectedly shrewd move from three-time NHL general manager of the year Jim Nill.
Hryckowian would have had arbitration rights if he opted for restricted free agency this summer. Now, he’ll be able to walk straight to the open market as a UFA in 2028.
Stars Activate Casey DeSmith, Recall Nathan Bastian
Jan. 5: DeSmith has returned to the team and has been activated from the non-roster list, the team announced. Poirier was sent back to AHL Texas in the corresponding move after backing up Oettinger in Sunday’s loss to the Canadiens. Dallas also recalled Bastian from his conditioning loan; he had two goals and an assist in four games for the AHL Stars.
Jan. 3: The Stars have made a pair of roster moves in advance of their game against Montreal on Sunday. The team announced (Twitter link) that goaltender Casey DeSmith has been granted non-roster status to tend to a personal family matter. Taking his place on the roster will be netminder Remi Poirier, who has been recalled from AHL Texas.
DeSmith is in his second season as the backup in Dallas and he is once again having a strong campaign. In 15 starts, he has posted a 2.44 GAA and a .912 SV%, numbers close to the ones he put up in 27 outings in 2024-25. His save percentage is actually five points higher than starter Jake Oettinger; it’s not often that a backup goalie has better numbers than an established number one option. He won’t be able to improve on those numbers for the time being; there is no timetable for his return.
As for Poirier, the 24-year-old is in his fourth season in the system for the Stars and this will be his first recall since his rookie campaign in 2022-23 where he didn’t see any game action. He has played in 22 games with Texas so far, compiling a 2.77 GAA along with a .903 SV%, his lowest mark at the AHL level so far. He’ll serve as Oettinger’s backup until DeSmith is able to return which should come fairly soon with Victory Plus’ Brian Rea suggesting (Twitter link) that DeSmith could be back with the team as soon as Tuesday.
From a salary cap perspective, Dallas has more than enough space in its LTIR pool with Tyler Seguin and Lian Bichsel both on there so nothing further has to be done on that front. Meanwhile, their active roster remains full as 23 players; even though Nathan Bastian is on a conditioning loan with Texas, he still is on the NHL roster.
Stars Activate, Reassign Luke Krys
The Stars activated defenseman Luke Krys from season-opening injured reserve on Sunday and subsequently reassigned him to the AHL’s Texas Stars, according to the minor league’s transaction log.
Krys, 25, will make his 2025-26 debut this week after completing his recovery from Achilles surgery. After helping Texas to a Western Conference Final appearance in last year’s Calder Cup Playoffs, Krys sustained a minor tear in rookie camp that ended up sidelining him for nearly four months.
Undrafted, the 6’2″ righty signed with Dallas out of Providence College in 2024. Now in the final season of his two-year entry-level contract, Krys has recorded four goals, 15 assists, 19 points, and a +8 rating in 73 AHL appearances since turning pro.
A smooth outlet passer with good two-way instincts, his development track doesn’t point toward him holding down a full-time NHL role, but he could be a capable call-up option down the line if the Stars opt to issue him a qualifying offer and retain him this summer. The Connecticut native’s +11 rating was second among Texas Stars defenders last year.
His return is a bit of a breath of fresh air for a Stars team that isn’t overflowing with organizational depth on the blue line, at least professionally. Dallas only had four NHL-contracted defenders in the minors who were available for recall before Krys’ return.