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Stars’ Jim Nill Named General Manager Of The Year

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Dallas Stars’ GM Jim Nill has been named the 2024-25 Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year, per a league announcement. Nill has now won the award three consecutive years, becoming the first GM to achieve the three-peat. He was named on 37 of the 42 ballots submitted for the award.

Nill received 139 points, which equates to 17 first-place votes, 17 second-place votes, and three third-place votes. Florida Panthers GM Bill Zito finished second with 102 points, while Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff finished a distant third with 52 points. In total, 13 general managers received votes.

Nill supported the Stars’ efforts during the 2024-25 season by acquiring Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci from the San Jose Sharks in February and then swung for the fences by trading for star winger Mikko Rantanen from the Carolina Hurricanes at the deadline. Granlund posted 21 points in 31 regular-season games for the Stars, while Rantanen went on a historic playoff run with the team, posting nine goals and 22 points in 18 games.

Nill spent nine seasons playing in the NHL, skating in 524 career games for five different teams. Following his playing career, he spent time scouting and eventually worked his way into a management role in the Red Wings organization. He was named the Stars’ general manager in 2013 and in his 12 seasons in Dallas has been a finalist for the Jim Gregory Award five times.

Voting for the award was conducted by NHL Club General Managers and a panel of league executives and media members at the conclusion of the second round in the playoffs.

 

Stars, Assistant Coach Misha Donskov Part Ways

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Stars assistant coach Misha Donskov has left the club to become a top coach and executive with Hockey Canada’s men’s national team program, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet said Friday. Dallas later confirmed Donskov’s departure.

Donskov had been in Dallas for the past two seasons. He’d spent the previous seven years with the Golden Knights as their director of hockey operations and later assistant coach, working under now-former Stars bench boss Peter DeBoer in the latter role. While Vegas fired DeBoer and he joined Dallas in the 2022 offseason, Donskov joined him one year later.

There was some smoke about Donskov being interviewed for NHL head coaching vacancies this summer, particularly the Bruins’ job, but Dallas’ deep playoff run prevented him from interviewing. With their unexpected firing of DeBoer following their elimination, some wondered if Donskov would be considered for an internal promotion. He’s not one of the reported finalists, though, and will instead head elsewhere to further his career.

The 48-year-old has worked with the Canadian national team before, most recently as an assistant coach at the 4 Nations Face-Off. He was also an assistant for them at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey and the World Championship. He’ll now serve as the head coach of their WC teams for the foreseeable future while serving as an associate coach at the World Juniors and an assistant at the 2026 Olympics under Lightning bench boss Jon Cooper.

The Stars now have two assistant coach vacancies to fill in addition to their head coach position. The team lost Steve Spott last week after he accepted an assistant role with the Bruins. Only assistant coach Alain Nasreddine and goalie coach Jeff Reese remain from this past season’s bench staff.

Stars Nearing A Decision On Their Next Head Coach

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Earlier today, the Stars took care of keeping one of their team leaders in place when they signed Jamie Benn to a one-year, bonus-laden contract to keep him away from hitting the open market.  Meanwhile, it appears that they’re closing in on finding their next leader behind the bench, as TSN’s Darren Dreger reports (Twitter link) that Dallas is close to finalizing their coaching decision with Neil Graham and Glen Gulutzan the perceived favorites for the job.

Graham has not yet worked at the NHL level but has plenty of familiarity with the organization.  After retiring during the 2012-13 season while playing for their ECHL affiliate in Idaho, he immediately became an assistant coach, moving into the head coaching role a few years later while also serving as their Director of Hockey Operations.  Graham was moved up to AHL Texas in 2019 as an assistant but was promoted to the full-time head coaching role later that season, a role he has held since then.  Texas has made the playoffs in each of the last four seasons and made it to the Western Conference Finals this year before losing to Abbotsford who won the Calder Cup earlier this week.  That success understandably has him on the radar.

As for Gulutzan, he certainly has familiarity with the organization as well.  He spent two years as the head coach with Texas and in 2011, he was promoted to serve in that role with Dallas.  The team played to a 64-57-9 record with Gulutzan at the helm but missed the playoffs both times.  As a result, he was fired just two weeks after GM Jim Nill joined Dallas.  Gulutzan was also the bench boss with Calgary in 2016-17 and 2017-18 with one playoff appearance during that time.  He has been an assistant with Edmonton since the 2018-19 season.

Whoever takes over will have high expectations as they’ll be taking the place of Peter DeBoer who was let go despite the Stars making it to the Western Conference Final for three straight years.  Nill has been trying to keep as much of his veteran core in place as possible to try to keep them in contention for a while longer, meaning that expectations will be quite high right away.

Dallas Stars, Jamie Benn Agree To One-Year Extension

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10:04 a.m.: The Stars have confirmed the signing. Johnston expanded on the bonus structure, reporting that Benn would receive a $500K bonus for 20, 30, 50, and 60 games played, $500K for a Western Conference Final win, and $500K for a Stanley Cup Final win.

9:05 a.m.: According to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun, the Dallas Stars are close to re-signing their captain, Jamie Benn, on a one-year contract. LeBrun added that the contract should be completed today, while TSN’s Darren Dreger shares that the contract is bonus-heavy. According to Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff, Benn’s contract will be a one-year deal worth $1MM, featuring performance bonuses similar to other contracts for players over 35. TSN’s Chris Johnston reports that the contract can become a $4MM deal, meaning Benn will have $3MM available to him in performance bonuses.

Once completed, the new deal will leave the Stars with under $1MM in cap space entering the offseason. It effectively eliminates any chance Dallas will retain trade deadline acquisitions such as Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci, or forward Evgenii Dadonov. Still, there was little expectation the Stars would pursue extensions with those players anyway, and they have effectively brought back the team’s core with some shrewd moves from General Manager Jim Nill over the last week. 

Benn may no longer be a high-scoring power forward who can contend for the Art Ross Trophy, but he remains a crucial leader in the Stars’ locker room and a valuable secondary scorer. His scoring has declined significantly in recent years, dropping from nearly a point-per-game average in 2022-23 to 60 points in 2023-24 and 49 points in 2024-25.

Like any aging player, Benn’s foot speed has also declined in recent years. Although he has never been known for his speed, Benn ranked in the 76th percentile with 504 bursts of 18-20 mph during the 2021-22 season, while the average was 300. In comparison, he recorded 383 bursts in the 2024-25 season, with the average at 326, according to NHL EDGE data.

Still, what he’s lost in offensive capabilities and speed, he’s made up for on the defensive side of the game. For the first time since the 2021-22 campaign, and only the fourth time of his career, the Stars deployed Benn in the defensive zone more than the offensive zone. He responded as well as he ever had, earning a 90.6% on-ice save percentage at even strength, while maintaining an 11.7% team on-ice shooting percentage while he’s on the ice at even strength, the second-best output of his career regarding the latter category.

Effectively, even with the potential of the contract becoming a $4MM agreement, Benn’s new contract appears to be a steal if he continues his defensive prowess. The bonus structure of the contract allows Dallas to push most of the overtures to their 2026-27 salary cap table, when the salary cap rises to $104MM.

Photo courtesy of Jerome Miron-Imagn Images.

Stars Sign Kole Lind To Two-Way Extension

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The Stars are keeping depth forward Kole Lind around for 2025-26 on a two-way deal, the team announced Monday. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Lind, 26, will return for a second season in the Dallas organization instead of testing Group VI unrestricted free agency in back-to-back summers. A second-round pick by the Canucks back in 2017, he’s firmly settled into the tweener archetype. He’s long been among the AHL’s most productive and consistent scorers, but the 6’1″ winger has just eight points in 31 career NHL games.

None of those appearances came with Dallas last year. He spent the entire season with AHL Texas after clearing waivers. While his offensive output there was his worst on a per-game basis in a while, he still managed a strong 23-29–52 scoring line in 71 games to finish fourth on the team in scoring. He added 15 points in 14 Calder Cup Playoff games as well.

Amid a cap crunch in the Lone Star State, Lind stands a decent chance of seeing NHL action next year as a call-up or extra forward thanks to what will presumably be a league-minimum $775K cap hit. Even if not, there was evidently mutual appreciation of his production in the minors, and he’ll stick around as an important veteran piece to complement the Stars’ younger prospects. Lind has 111 goals, 173 assists, and 284 points in 384 AHL games (along with 449 PIMs) since making his professional debut in 2018.

Of course, he’ll need to clear waivers again during preseason if the Stars want to send him back to Texas. He’ll also be eligible for standard UFA status next summer since he turns 27 in October. After signing Lind, the Stars only have nine open contract slots throughout the organization.

Maple Leafs Linked To Mikael Granlund, Pius Suter

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The Maple Leafs have displayed interest in centers Mikael Granlund and Pius Suter to bolster their depth at the position after free agency opens next week, according to Kristen Shilton of ESPN.

They’re expected to pursue them for a bigger punch down the middle, even if they agree to a new contract with No. 2 center John Tavares, also a pending UFA. If they can’t extend the latter, though, pursuing one or both of Granlund and Suter this summer immediately becomes their top priority instead of a “nice-to-have” pickup in addition to a partial replacement for Mitch Marner on the wing. That’s an increasingly likely outcome with Tavares and the Leafs not being close on a new deal as of Saturday.

If the Leafs manage to retain Tavares, they’d presumably be more interested in Suter as a minute-munching third-line option while keeping Tavares in favorable offensive deployment with William Nylander on the second line if he’s not moved up to Auston Matthews’ unit in place of the departing Marner. Granlund, on the other hand, is far less of a two-way player than Suter but has a significantly higher offensive ceiling that could, at least feasibly, be a near-direct replacement for Tavares in favorable usage if they can’t re-sign him. The 33-year-old Finn totaled 22 goals and 66 points in 83 games this year, split between the Sharks and Stars. That’s 0.19 fewer points per game than Tavares gave Toronto, but playing with Nylander could help him cover the gap.

Suter would be an expensive third-line piece, but the 29-year-old would be worth the price of admission to give the club its best option at the position since their deadline pickup of Ryan O’Reilly in 2023. The 5’11” Swiss native had a career-high 25 goals and 46 points last year with Vancouver, averaging north of 17 minutes per game and often seeing duties as a matchup forward. He played far more at center than he had in the past, and while faceoffs remain an issue (42.7 FOW%), he had favorable possession metrics in the most difficult defensive deployment of his five-year NHL career. He saw significant time on both special teams units as well, particularly shorthanded, where he averaged 2:17 per game to lead Vancouver forwards.

Shilton named Claude Giroux as a more speculative/tertiary option. He’s not mentioned in the same tier of interest as Granlund and Suter for good reason. The 37-year-old remains in productive talks with the Senators on a contract extension and hasn’t consistently played down the middle in quite some time, although he still takes a good deal of faceoffs and does so quite well. He won 59.1% of his draws over the last three years in Ottawa.

Offseason Checklist: Dallas Stars

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The offseason has arrived with the draft and free agency fast approaching.  Accordingly, it’s time to look at what each team needs to accomplish this summer.  Next up is a look at Dallas.

The Stars went all-in this season, swinging a pair of significant trades near the trade deadline to add multiple key pieces in the hopes that doing so would help them take that next step and reach the Stanley Cup Final.  Instead, despite the extra talent, they once again came up just short.  Now, GM Jim Nill has some work in the coming weeks to do to keep as much of his core group together for next season.

Hire A New Coach

It’s not very often that a team that has the type of playoff success that Dallas has changes coaches.  But a week after the Stars were eliminated, Nill elected to make a change, dismissing head coach Peter DeBoer after three seasons with the team, all of them ending with losses in the Western Conference Final.  His handling of goaltender Jake Oettinger during and after the final game of the Edmonton series is believed to be a contributing factor in the decision, as was the fact that DeBoer was entering the final year of his contract with the team.  Clearly, an extension wasn’t in the offing and rather than have a coach in his ‘lame duck’ year, they opted for a change.

The timing of the move was somewhat curious as, prior to the move, all the other vacancies around the league had been filled.  Had Nill made the decision even a few days earlier, he could have had a chance to speak to some of the new bench bosses that were hired elsewhere.

Accordingly, the early thought was that Nill might just promote from within, meaning one of assistants Alain Nasreddine (who briefly ran the bench in New Jersey) or Misha Donskov, along with AHL head coach Neil Graham, would be the speculative favorites.  In recent days, Oilers assistant Glen Gulutzan (who Nill fired as Dallas’ head coach in 2013) has become a speculative candidate for the opening as well.

Beyond those options, the usual options that came up in other coaching searches include veterans Bruce Boudreau, John Tortorella, Jay Woodcroft, and Gerard Gallant with first time options like Mitch Love, Jay Leach, and Manny Malhotra (who is still coaching in the Calder Cup Finals) potentially garnering consideration as the process goes on.  Additionally, they’ll also have a lead assistant role to fill after Boston hired Steve Spott as an assistant coach with them on Friday.

This isn’t something they necessarily have to have done by the draft but when free agency comes around, potential targets will want to know who they’re playing for.  With that in mind, a decision will need to be made relatively soon.

Clear Out A Defender (Or Two)

Nill has been quite busy in recent days on the transactions front, re-signing Matt Duchene to a four-year contract and then dealing away Mason Marchment to Seattle to balance the money from that move.  They’ve since re-signed defenseman Nils Lundkvist and winger Mavrik Bourque to low-cost one-year deals.  In doing so, they’ve dropped their cap space to $2.75MM per PuckPedia which sounds okay until you consider that they probably need to sign four forwards and possibly a defenseman with that money.  With a minimum salary of $775K, something has to give.

While there has been some speculation about moving out a core player (one in particular we’ll get to shortly), it feels like the Stars would prefer to chip away at creating that space with multiple moves, the Marchment one being the first.  To do that, the chipping away will need to come from the back end.

Veteran blueliner Mathew Dumba is the most logical candidate to remove from the roster.  The first season of his two-year, $7.5MM contract did not go well at all with the 30-year-old struggling to the point where he didn’t play at all in the playoffs.  That’s $3.75MM that could be used to round out the roster, perhaps to try to re-sign captain Jamie Benn.

But how to clear that contract remains to be seen.  A buyout would lower the cap hit to $1.417MM next season but add $1.167MM to the books for 2026-27.  Meanwhile, waiving and assigning him to the minors would only clear $1.15MM, leaving $2.6MM counting against the cap.  In a perfect world, trading him without retention would be Plan A but it’s likely they’ll have to incentivize a team to take him and down several draft picks, that’s not the most appealing option either.  But they’ll have to pick the best bad option and move forward from there.

There has also been some speculation about Ilya Lyubushkin.  He has two years left on his contract signed last summer with a $3.25MM cap charge.  He played more regularly during the regular season but wasn’t an every-game player in the playoffs for them.  In a perfect world, they’d keep him on the third pairing but if additional funds need to be freed up, he could be a candidate to move as well.  If nothing else, given the lack of depth of the market, Dallas should be able to move him without attaching assets unlike Dumba.

Whether it’s Dumba, Lyubushkin, or both, some more quick activity on the roster front will be needed from Nill before too long.

Make A Decision On Robertson

Knowing that a significant amount of cap space needed to be opened up (and that was before re-signing Duchene), there was plenty of speculation surrounding winger Jason Robertson.  With a $7.75MM price tag, clearing that much money would allow them to not move as many players out to keep cap-compliant.  Of course, doing so would also open up a significant hole on their top line.  There are three options the Stars have here as he enters the final year of his contract which we’ll go through here.

Trade: While this seemed to be more of an option earlier this month, it appears that Dallas has told teams that they don’t want to go this route.  But depending on how successful they are at clearing out the defensemen, it can’t be ruled out either.  At a price tag that will be cheaper than most of the top wingers on the open market (for one year, at least), there should be strong interest in a player who has reached at least 80 points in three straight years and has scored more than 40 goals in two of the last four seasons.  To keep the cap charge down, the bulk of the return could be futures-based but there would be room for them to pick up an entry-level forward who is already established, similar to Carolina’s addition of Logan Stankoven from Dallas in the Rantanen trade.

Extend: There’s a case to make that if the Stars don’t move Robertson, they should focus in on trying to sign him to a long-term extension this summer, eliminating any speculation about a trade coming into play as the season goes on.  His qualifying offer jumps to $9.3MM and he’ll be arbitration-eligible while being one year away from UFA eligibility so it’s going to take a big offer to get something done now.  Knowing the $104MM projection, simply matching his current cap hit percentage would make the offer $9.766MM which still feels on the low side given how productive he has been in the first three years of the deal.  At this point, the price tag feels likely to start at the $11MM mark, especially if it’s an early deal getting done.

Hold: This one is rather self-explanatory.  If they want to keep their options open, they can enter the season without an extension and if they struggle or find themselves too far apart on contract talks, then the idea of a trade could be entertained closer to the trade deadline or they could kick the can on extension discussions to this time next summer.  It’s probably not their preferred option but it could easily happen.

Harley Extension Talks

Robertson isn’t the only prominent player entering the final year of his contract that Dallas has, as defenseman Thomas Harley is also in that situation.  It took a while for the Stars to get a bridge deal done with him last fall but with their cap situation, they didn’t have much of a choice since a long-term pact wasn’t in the cards.  They’ll be able to at least start talks on a new deal this summer but it would be surprising to see something get done early.

While there’s an $8.5MM projected increase to the Upper Limit between 2025-26 and 2026-27, Robertson projects to take up around half of that.  And frankly, a long-term deal for Harley coming off the year he just had (50 points in over 23 minutes a night of action) is going to cost more than $8.5MM (his current cost plus the leftover increase after Robertson’s possible raise).  So at this point, a long-term extension to one of Harley or Robertson could preclude one going to the other in the near future.

However, there is one other option they could go with and that’s a second bridge deal.  Harley has three RFA-eligible years after this one so another two-year pact would fit within the remaining projected increase assuming Robertson signed an extension.  Having said that, that’s not the type of deal that typically gets signed one year out.

With all of that in mind, this could very well be a case where both sides ultimately exchange numbers and decide that more time is needed.  But Nill will need to get a sense at least of what Harley’s next deal will cost to help shape their offseason planning and determine how much future money they may need to try to clear off the books.

Photo courtesy of Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports.

Matt Duchene Didn't Want To Play Anywhere But Dallas

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  • On the cusp of reaching the open market and objectively becoming one of the top centers available, Matt Duchene instead chose to re-sign with the Dallas Stars on a four-year deal worth $18MM, likely leaving several million dollars on the table. In a new interview with Lia Assimakopoulos of The Dallas Morning News, Duchene indicated how easy a choice it was, saying, “First of all, any guy I’ve talked to wants to come back, so that’s great. I mean, it’s such a desirable place. I think it’s a place that anybody in the league would be lucky to play. And most guys in the league want to play for our team, and that speaks to the culture that the organization has created.“

    [SOURCE LINK]

Dallas Stars Sign Mavrik Bourque To One-Year Deal

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Shortly after announcing a new one-year deal for defenseman Nils Lundkvist, the Dallas Stars have signed their only remaining restricted free agent. According to a team announcement, the Stars have signed forward Mavrik Bourque to a one-year, $950K contract for the 2025-26 NHL season.

Re-signing Bourque relatively early was a smart play by General Manager Jim Nill. Given their projected salary cap space entering the summer and Bourque’s combination of youth and skill, he was a prime offer sheet candidate this offseason. Now, he’ll remain with the Stars on a sub-$1MM deal.

The only concern with this deal is that Dallas was unable to secure a longer contract for him. According to PuckPedia, the Stars have less than $3MM in financial wiggle room, meaning they were practically forced to give Bourque a short-term deal to keep the salary low.

Despite already having solid players at the NHL level, Bourque forced himself onto the NHL roster this past season. Bourque had a historic season with the AHL’s Texas Stars in 2023-24, scoring 26 goals and accumulating 77 points in 71 games, along with three goals and 11 points in seven playoff contests. He likely had to buy a new shelf for his hardware, earning the AHL’s Les Cunningham Award, John B. Sollenberger Trophy, President’s Award, and First All-Star Team honors.

Due to the depth of the Stars’ roster, Bourque had limited opportunities in 2024-25. Still, he had a quality rookie season, scoring 11 goals and 25 points in 72 games, averaging 12:41 of ice time per game. Despite finishing 11th among forwards with more than 20 GPs in ice time at even strength, Bourque finished third among forwards in CorsiFor% at even strength with a 52.6% rate.

Dallas Stars Sign Nils Lundkvist To One-Year Deal

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A day after re-signing Matt Duchene to a four-year deal and trading Mason Marchment to the Seattle Kraken, the Dallas Stars have gotten another piece of business finished. According to a team announcement, the Stars have signed defenseman Nils Lundkvist to a one-year, $1.25MM contract for the 2025-26 NHL season, matching his projected qualifying offer.

According to PuckPedia, the new deal reduces Dallas’s available cap space to $3.705MM, with six players projected to reach unrestricted free agency, and Mavrik Bourque as the only remaining restricted free agent on the team. A few more transactions are needed to achieve the financial flexibility required, but the Stars continue taking steps in the right direction.

Whether through trade or free agency, the depth leaving Dallas this summer could create a large opportunity for Lundkvist. Outside of defensemen Mathew Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin (who could be traded in the coming days), Lundkvist is the top right-handed option for the Stars on the blue line.

It’ll be difficult for him to have a worse season than the 2024-25 campaign. Limited by injuries for much of the campaign, Lundkvist finished the 2024-25 season with five assists in 39 games, averaging 15:01 of ice time per night. In Lundkvist’s defense, he performed much better with increased availability from 2022 to 2024, scoring eight goals and 35 points in 119 games, averaging 15:13 of ice time.

Lundkvist’s primary value lies in his defensive play, which explains why he was selected in the first round of the 2018 NHL Draft. Since joining the Stars during the 2022-23 season, Lundkvist has averaged an impressive 52.9% CorsiFor% at even strength and a 92.2% on-ice save percentage at even strength. According to Hockey Reference, he’s never held an Expected +/- of less than zero throughout his tenure in Dallas.

There’s a concrete argument that Lundkvist is the Stars’ top defensive-oriented blue liner behind Esa Lindell. Because of this, there should be little doubt that he’ll find regular playing time in Dallas’s top two defensive pairings during the 2025-26 campaign.

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