Dallas Stars: Taking A Look At Their Unrestricted Free Agents

The 2017 free agency pool for the Dallas Stars has some big names involved, both on the UFA and RFA side. Let’s take an in-depth look at the UFA list.

With every offseason comes inevitable change for each and every team in the National Hockey League. That change is simply a part of the game.

While changes can come in a wide variety of fashions (trades, hirings and firings, call-ups, etc.), but the typical avenue is through free agency. Each year, teams have to make decisions on who to re-sign, who to let go, and who to bring in from the market.

It’s never an easy task, but the goal is to somehow upgrade the team and take it a step further than the year before.

But before they can go out and search for new players in the free agency pool, they first have to make their in-house decisions. That means that all of their pending UFAs and RFAs must either receive a qualifying offer, a completely new contract, or not come to terms with the team and enter free agency.

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For the Dallas Stars, they will have plenty of interesting decisions to make.

This offseason is definitely not as stacked with talent as last year’s was, though. Alex Goligoski, Jason Demers, Kris Russell, Jordie Benn, Vernon Fiddler, Colton Sceviour, and Patrick Eaves all headlined the Stars’ 2016 UFA class, giving Dallas a mass of decisions to make before July 1.

This season, the Stars don’t have as many veteran UFAs to deal with. In fact, they only have three that are consistent NHL starters (there are seven in total). But when it comes to RFAs, that’s an entirely new animal.

The Dallas Stars did themselves a favor by ridding themselves of a lot of pending free agents (Johnny Oduya, Lauri Korpikoski, Patrick Eaves) at the 2017 trade deadline, but there are still a few names that have to be decided upon.

Here’s a rundown of the Dallas Stars’ three unrestricted free agents (and the other four in the system) and what the Stars may be planning on doing with each one of them.There will be a report on all of the restricted free agents being posted in the near future. Until then, take a look below at the newest UFA class.

Dallas Stars

Unrestricted Free Agents

Patrick Sharp

The 35-year-old winger might be the Dallas Stars’ most debated free agent this offseason.

On one hand, he’s still a valued depth scorer. He had a rough year due to multiple concussion injuries as well as a nagging hip injury that required surgery towards the end of the season. Though he only scored eight goals and tallied 18 points in 48 games, his 2015-16 totals (20-35=55 in 76 games) are probably a better representation of what he can bring to the table.

Whether Patrick Sharp fully recovers from his hip surgery will be a looming question to follow and may even be enough to convince Sharp to hang up the skates early. The surgery was deemed a successful one and now has him on the mends, but anything can happen.

Sharp had a cap hit of $5.9 million in his most recent contract and would likely need to take a sizable reduction if he wanted to stay with the Stars. Dallas needs all of the cap space they can get considering they are expected to buy big this summer. If Sharp signs for somewhere around $3 million, expect Dallas to take a hard look at him and likely bring the winger back.

But again, a few things have to happen for #10 to be back next season. Still, it would definitely be to the Stars’ advantage to have him back for another year.

Ales Hemsky

Similar to Sharp, Ales Hemsky’s final year under contract was largely dominated by injury. He had surgery in late October on a torn labrum in his right hip that caused him to miss 5-6 months.

He was able to play in the tail end of the season and produced relatively well, scoring four goals and tallying seven points in 15 games.

The 33-year-old has proven that he can still use his explosive speed on the wings for Dallas and could be a valuable right winger for a team lacking at the position.

But just as it is in Sharp’s case, money could be the decider. Hemsky is currently at a cap hit of $4 million and could still receive an offer near there considering he still has years left on him. For Dallas, they may not be inclined to offer more than $2.5 million. Remember that the Stars need to save money for other acquisitions.

Jiri Hudler

It was a simple experiment by GM Jim Nill when he signed Jiri Hudler to a one-year deal worth $2 million back in August just before training camp began. While the experiment had plenty of potential, it ultimately failed.

After missing 20 games at the beginning of the year due to a mysterious illness, Hudler never seemed to get rolling in his first year in Dallas. He finished the season with just 32 games under his belt. That’s because he was the healthy scratch for multiple stints during the season due to a lack of production. His final line at the end of the year included just three goals and 11 points.

It’s highly unlikely that the Dallas Stars try to bring the 33-year-old back for another round considering the amount of youthful talent waiting for playing time, but anything is possible with Nill in the GM chair.

The Remaining Four

Center Justin Dowling, goaltender Justin Peters, defender Dustin Stevenson and center Travis Morin round out the Stars’ UFA list. While Dowling saw some NHL time down the stretch in this past season, none of the others have seen any ice time with the Dallas Stars in over two seasons.

Dowling is probably a shoo-in for a new contract, as is Morin (though he is likely to remain in the AHL). Stevenson has spent each of his past four seasons with a different AHL club, and this coming offseason he may find a fifth if the Stars don’t claim him. Finally, Peters presents an interesting debate. Dallas has plenty of goaltenders in the system, yet they went after Peters in a trade back in February. Does he get a new deal with the Stars?

But back to the main points, what do you think the Stars will do with the three veteran NHL forwards? Bring back one? Two? All three? None? What about the other four UFAs?

Next: Stars Kick Off Re-Sign Phase, Sign Janmark To New Deal

The possibilities are endless, and that’s what makes the offseason so gosh darn entertaining.

Keep a lookout for the RFA evaluation in the near future. And until then, just keep on pondering.

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