Off-Season Updates: Souray on BAD Radio, Several options off of FA market.

Hey there Stars fans,  welcome to the first official Off-Season Update.  I hope to do this each week, but lets face it – Dallas is currently at a stand-still as far as Hockey goes.  But there are a few tidbits that may be worth knowing and I intend on listing them for you.

First, an interesting interview on BAD Radio with Sheldon Souray.  He talks about his time with the Oilers, what he went through with the organization and how excited he is that he ended up in Dallas.  You can find that here:

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO SOURAY INTERVIEW

It’s pretty interesting, a solid 15 minute interview where they get down to the bottom of what went on in Edmonton as they talk about his injuries and how and why he ended up playing last year in the AHL.

PRE-SEASON SCHEDULE

In other news, if you’re a huge fan then the next thing to look forward to is finding a way to view the pre-season games.  First step to making that a possibility is naturally knowing the schedule and here that is:

Games of note on this schedule for me is the game against the Florida Panthers as they have quite a new look and I’m excited to see it in action and the home game versus the Blues as we will see Langenbrunner and Arnott in a blue jersey…

If anyone was able to go to the development camp autograph session yesterday then I would love to hear what you guys thought of the young players (especially Oleksiak and Ritchie) and the experience in general, so be sure to leave a comment!

RAZOR WITH A BULLET

In Razor related news, in case you didn’t already know, the push to get our favorite color commentator onto Twitter was a success and you can now follow him HERE on twitter.  In other Razor news he posted up a July 4th themed blog over at Razor with an Edge which you can find HERE.

MIKE MODANO – STILL UNDECIDED

In case you missed this bit of news the fist time around; Mike Modano is still undecided.  Same picture is being painted as last year, except this year, we don’t have to feel bad about letting him go.  Mo has expressed interest in being part of the Dallas front office should he decide to hang them up.  Supposedly he is leaning toward retiring, but with some of the comments referring to the fuel level in his proverbial tank; you might be lead to believe otherwise.  The question remains, whether or not he’s willing to take another back seat position on a cup contender for the chance to win ring number 2.  Because that’s where he’ll be stuck if he goes that route.  His other option outside of retirement would be joining a team on the cusp, getting a bigger role and hoping that they become the next surprise champions.

Either way, you have to assume the choices are scarce and likely not ideal for him.

PLAYERS OF INTEREST

Well, at the end of the day as a writer, I am still constantly checking out sources for rumors and confirmations on roster moves for the Stars.  After the initial day 1 contractapalooza, things have all but disintegrated.  The only thing left to do is to watch what other teams are doing and waiting to see who ends up being left over.  So here’s a list of my personal players of interest; some gone some still available.

• Thomas Kaberle – Had a mediocre season with the Bruins, but could still be counted on as a top pair defensemen with the right coaching and system, in my opinion.  He went to the Hurricanes for the next 3 years.
• Yandle would have been a huge addition, as he is an amazing player and has a ton of upside to be gained.  Not to mention he’s been well coached under Tippet.  However, he ended up signing to stay with the Coyotes for another 5 years.
• McCabe – Probably one of the only defensemen left that we could make room for.  While Sopel or even resigning Skrastins may help upgrade the bottom side of our defense, we simply have too many at this point.  The only option left for our core would be finding someone who was a top 2 defensemen.  While I think McCabe is better suited as a 3-4, he could certainly stretch it in the same way Goligoski did and add the offensive skill needed.
• Nikolai Zherdev – A gamble to say the least, Zerdev still scored 16 goals last year in a fairly limited role on the Flyers team.  He could be the final piece to the “how are we going to replace Richards’ point production” puzzle.

The pool is shallow at this point, the rest of the listings wouldn’t necessarily help the Stars as they did their best to add to the depth pool with their free agent signings on day 1.  At this point you have to look at higher end content and there simply isn’t much there.  I could totally see Joe take a gamble on someone like Stillman, to be honest or something even sillier like Kyle Wellwood, but that’s neither here nor there until he takes that plunge.

I will continue to drown myself with rumors and theories until something is made official and at that point, you all will be the first to know.