{"id":625895,"date":"2026-07-18T23:35:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T23:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/625895\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T23:35:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T23:35:29","slug":"taking-stock-of-a-sobering-july-1-for-the-dallas-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/625895\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Stock of a Sobering July 1 for the Dallas Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Update: About 30 minutes after I published this, the Stars signed forward Joel Kiviranta for one year at $1 million<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve almost entirely ignored the little social media notifications about comments, replies, and Other Types of Engagement today outside of this site. That\u2019s been a result of being quite busy today between writing<\/a>, press-conferencing, and podcasting.<\/p>\n

(By the way, check out AIH\u2019s Free Agency episode today, recorded right in the thick of things. It\u2019s also on Spotify<\/a>\/Apple Podcasts<\/a> and such, for the audiophiles out there.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The other reason I\u2019ve mostly avoided the Deluge of Takes today is that, in Dallas Stars world, there is a large amount of frustration from fans. The Stars haven\u2019t acquired a single NHL player besides re-signing Arttu Hyry and Kyle Capobianco. In fact, they lost a popular young player they drafted and developed, and who scored 20 goals last year when they very much needed him to. Losing Mavrik Bourque for a couple of draft picks is a disappointment, even if the Stars wound up in a situation where they didn\u2019t have much choice.<\/p>\n

Jim Nill said today, in fact, that the Stars knew that there was a possibility of trading Bourque even a year ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew going into this season that it was gonna be a tough decision,\u201d Nill said today. \u201cThe numbers, like I said, you get the calculator out, and the numbers don\u2019t add up eventually. When you get the sum of a lot of good players, those numbers have to add up. Tough decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nill was diplomatic as ever<\/a> in his usual July 1 comments today, but he did confirm one thing: the threat of offer sheets was a very real consideration in trading Bourque along with Ilya Lyubushkin today. <\/p>\n

\u201cMavrik became a pretty valuable player,\u201d Nill said, \u201cBut because of his situation, we were worried about offer sheets. Also, he\u2019s a young player. He\u2019s starting to hit his prime, and teams are trying to figure out, what\u2019s his situation? Where\u2019s he gonna plateau and stuff? So it was what we thought was best for our organization. We had to be cap compliant, and we wanted to get the most assets we could for him, so it was kind of a mix of both, and probably the best situation for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked whether the Robertson situation had an impact on decisions like the Bourque trade, Nill was careful not to point any fingers. But he was also realistic about the fact that everything was connected. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely comes into play,\u201d Nill said of the Robertson negotiations. \u201cEvery contract does. Talk about Mavrik [Bourque]. We were looking at that contract situation three months [ago]. We thought, \u2018This is what his number was.\u2019 The game is ever-evolving, and those numbers change all the time, and so you make changes. So, does it come into play? Yes, it definitely does. But we have a rough idea where it fits, so when we have to make decisions, we kind of know where it falls into place.\u201d<\/p>\n

One way to interpret those remarks is that the Stars had Bourque\u2019s value at a lower number earlier in the year, and that his ask ended up being a lot higher after the season. Combine that with the unresolved Robertson situation, and I wonder if the Stars found themselves pretty stuck. Thus, they had to move Bourque for a price that was pretty close to what an offer sheet would have returned anyway, with Lyubushkin\u2019s contract heading out the door as well. <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a fan, I\u2019d imagine your disappointment about losing Bourque is further compounded by how the acquisitions of Matthew Knies and Zach Werenski(!) turned from imminent deals into never-minds. The Stars have, under Jim Nill, generally been a team that stays quiet right until they\u2019re about to pounce on a big acquisition, and then it comes off with flair and bombast. This week was uncharacteristically frustrating, to say the least. Fans in Dallas are accustomed to seeing their team be the one players force trades to, after all<\/p>\n

But Nill was careful not to let any frustration or disappointment creep into his comments today. When asked how they keep an even keel, Nill reminded people that a lot of things are going on that most people never hear about.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe come here every day trying to, how can we make the team better?\u201d Nill said. \u201cHow can we improve the organization? Sometimes, the number of things we talk about usually, I don\u2019t know what the percentage is, but they don\u2019t happen very often. You only see so many trades in sports every day. There\u2019s only so many. But the groundwork that\u2019s going on behind the scenes, it\u2019s never-ending. So there\u2019s lots of discussion, lots of talk. Sometimes they work out, sometimes they don\u2019t. I think the message is that we\u2019re just trying to be as competitive and as good of a team as we can be. And we\u2019re gonna continue to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what the Stars have to show for the last week:<\/p>\n

Mavrik Bourque & Ilya Lyubushkin were traded to Nashville for a 2027 2nd-round pick and Vegas\u2019s 2028 3rd-round pick.<\/p>\n

Kyle Capobianco was re-signed for two years at $875K<\/p>\n

Arttu Hyry was re-signed for two years at $900K<\/p>\n

Jason Robertson remains in RFA limbo (and in fact could still be offer-sheeted, though I don\u2019t think that\u2019s all that likely now). Nill said there was no update on talks with Robertson\u2019s camp today, reiterating that Dallas still would like to sign him if possible.<\/p>\n

Alex Petrovic left Dallas to sign for two years with the Florida Panthers. <\/p>\n

Texas players like Artem Shlaine, Luke Krys, and a few others have been recently re-signed, but their NHL impact is yet to be determined, if it happens at all this year.<\/p>\n

Jamie Benn talks are continuing, Nill said, and he expects a decision soon:<\/p>\n

\u201cJamie\u2019s had discussions. I\u2019m gonna talk to him more once we get through all this. Feeling pretty comfortable with where he\u2019s at, but I want to finalize it with him, yes. That\u2019s coming up.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you presume that Benn comes back with something like an $850K base salary plus more incentives like last year, then the Stars\u2019 roster currently looks like this. If you assume Kyle Capobianco starts the year in the AHL for cap reasons, then Dallas would have just under $12.5 million cap space with Robertson still un-signed ($12,489,667 to be exact). <\/p>\n

Hryckowian-Johnston-Rantanen
Steel-Hintz-Seguin
Benn-Duchene-Hyry
B\u00e4ck-Faksa-Blackwell<\/p>\n

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Myers<\/p>\n

Oettinger
DeSmith<\/p>\n

If the Stars do bring Robertson back, either on a one-year deal after arbitration or (more unlikely) a longer extension, then you can move Steel and Benn down a bit in the lineup. Should the Stars end up trading Robertson, you\u2019d assume they\u2019d be looking for a way to get more winger help in return, directly or otherwise.<\/p>\n

And Nill confirmed that he expects more trading to be happening throughout the summer. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday is kind of a day where it\u2019s the free agent frenzy. Things will settle down now. We\u2019re gonna sit back, regroup,\u201d Nill said. \u201cI think it\u2019s gonna be a, I don\u2019t know if \u2018chaotic\u2019 summer, but a summer of a lot of moves, a lot of trades.\u201d <\/p>\n

In a sense, you have to at least give the Stars credit for not making moves just to make moves, as you could argue they did in 2024. But still, there\u2019s no denying that the roster is thinner than it was last year\u2014and it could be far more so if Robertson doesn\u2019t come back.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very shallow UFA market,\u201d Nill said. \u201cSome players did very well, and good for them, well-deserved. But I think there\u2019s gonna be a lot of movement now within the game over the next couple of months.\u201d <\/p>\n

What is a fair assessment of Bourque\u2019s value, for Dallas? <\/p>\n

Yes, he scored 20 goals (three of which were empty-netters) last year. His release is not a strength of his game, but to his great credit, he found a way to score from much closer to the net while playing with top-six players. One of the things that sets NHL players apart from minor-leaguers is their ability to modify their game to maximize their strengths, and you saw Bourque do that this year. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Given his age, Bourque still probably has more to give, and Nashville is likely to bet on just that with a Stankoven-ish contract, if he\u2019ll sign it. It\u2019s important to make a distinction between the vibes of this move and the reality of what Dallas lost. Fans tend to value young players they\u2019ve seen improve over time more than similar players on other teams, and Dallas was forced to trade Bourque away in what feels like the absolute nadir of Vibe Time. <\/p>\n

Dallas will hope that they can replace some (or all) of Bourque\u2019s production this year, but especially the following season, when the cap situation gets much easier for them. Sure, they\u2019ll have Lian Bichsel\u2019s first RFA deal to figure out and a ton of forward holes to fill, but they\u2019ll also have $30-40 million in cap space with which to do so. <\/p>\n

As for this year, can Tyler Seguin make up for some of Bourque\u2019s production? Well, he kind of has to, now. If his ACL is healed enough to let him do so, Seguin could thrive next to Hintz, or possibly next to Duchene, with whom he has proven chemistry. <\/p>\n

Other young players with strong rookie years like Artem Shlaine might get a chance for short call-ups at some point this year as well, if the need arises. But no one in the system has the pedigree of Bourque, and I don\u2019t see a viable replacement for what he did last year in the system right now, even if a couple of the college guys are closer than others. <\/p>\n

Dallas\u2019s thin forward depth got thinner today, and you are fully justified in feeling skeptical of how a team that finished the playoffs with two fourth lines is going to look deeper next year after Nashville just poked a hole in the side of the swimming pool. In a weird way, I worry less about the loss of Bourque itself, and more about how Dallas is going to try to make up for it. They may have dodged some of the foolhardy contracts handed out today, but they do need to bring some bodies in\u2014or at least re-sign one of them.<\/p>\n

Today was a frustrating day, so perhaps the best way to view it is that this might be the lowest part of the valley the Stars will have to walk through in making their run next season. Some level of surgery was necessary, but todays\u2019 procedure wound up going from arthroscopic to fairly invasive. Dallas will hope the healing process finds them stronger in the long run, but it\u2019s hard to see past the pain, right now. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Update: About 30 minutes after I published this, the Stars signed forward Joel Kiviranta for one year at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5117],"tags":[196,147,5278,5,4,197],"class_list":["post-625895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-stars","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-stars","tag-dallasstars","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-stars"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116943606944799780","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}