When the Dallas Stars extended Matt Duchene Thursday morning on a four-year deal that would eat $4.5 million in cap space next season, the writing was on the wall.
The Stars were left with just $455,000 to fill five remaining rosters spots. That is not even enough money to sign one player at the league minimum $775,00.
So, the Stars will have to make some addition roster moves before free agency opens July 1 to be able to complete their 2025-26 roster.
Jamie Benn, Evgenii Dadonov, Mikael Granlund, Colin Blackwell, Mavrik Bourque, Brendan Smith, Cody Ceci and Nils Lundkvist will all become restricted or unrestricted free agents on July 1. Many may walk to other teams, but the Stars will likely re-sign at least a few to replenish their roster.
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To clear the room to do so, there are two options for Dallas — trades and buyouts.
Trades are undoubtedly the more popular option for GM Jim Nill. By trading a player, their contract completely comes off the Stars’ books, and they can add other players or draft picks in addition to freeing up cap space.
But some of Dallas’ players may not have enough trade value and buyouts may need to be explored. The buyout window opens Wednesday and closes June 30.
The Stars bought out defenseman Ryan Suter last offseason, and that’s taking up $1.43 million on their cap this coming season. In the short term, buyouts save teams money but just spread out that payment over time.
With the NHL salary cap going up $8.5 million next year and $9.5 million the year after, buyouts for certain players could be an intriguing option.
The top buyout candidate for Dallas is defenseman Matt Dumba.
The Stars signed Dumba to a two-year deal worth $3.75 million annually last offseason, and it hasn’t worked out how they’d hoped.
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Dumba recorded just 10 points and 60 penalty minutes in 63 regular-season games. A midseason injury was the start of the setbacks, and he was ultimately a healthy scratch throughout the entire playoff run.
Former Stars coach Pete DeBoer entrusted his role to Alexander Petrovic, who played the entire regular season in the AHL.
The Stars have likely already begun shopping Dumba as a trade piece and could consider attaching a low draft pick to him to make the deal more enticing for a franchise in a rebuild. But the Stars don’t have many picks to give up, and it’s unclear whether they’ll be able to find a destination for him.
If they can’t, the Stars could buy out Dumba starting Wednesday. That would free up $2.33 million in cap space this year, bringing their total to $2.79 million to work with to sign six players. It would, however, cost them $1.17 million on the cap next year.
Two other buyout candidates for Dallas are Mason Marchment and Ilya Lyubushkin, however, both would be preferred as trade pieces.
Marchment was a 22-goal scorer in each of the last two seasons. While the Stars may wish to get his $4.5 million cap hit off the books, they can only reap that full benefit by trading him. A buyout would save them just $1.73 million.
Marchment could generate some positive return, either in draft picks or depth pieces at a more affordable price. If the Stars can trade Marchment and buy out Dumba, they’d have over $7 million to work with to sign seven players.
Ilya Lyubushkin is the last candidate the Stars could consider moving. It wouldn’t be surprising if the Stars chose to keep him on the roster for his penalty-killing abilities and as a depth piece on their right side.
A buyout would save Dallas $2.39 million this year, $1.44 next year but would cost them in each of the two seasons after that. He still has two years remaining on his deal.
If Dallas could trade him instead — and there should be a market for a reliable right-handed depth defenseman — it would clear $3.25 million.
While Nill could move any player and has surprised in the past in doing so, the three aforementioned are the most likely candidates. There was some steam behind a potential Jason Robertson trade last week, but that move has since seemed less probable, especially purely for the reason of clearing cap room.
Nill and his staff wouldn’t have signed Duchene to a deal of that value without knowing the market for players like Marchment, Dumba and Lyubushkin.
Whether it’s a trade or a buyout, they’ll need to be prepared to move some of them — or others — to pave the way for a completed roster by July 1.
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