Dallas Stars Lose Cody Eakin To Vegas Golden Knights In Expansion Draft
By Josh Clark
It’s official. At the NHL Awards on Wednesday night, the Vegas Golden Knights used their Dallas Stars pick to select center Cody Eakin.
And there we have it. After two years of speculating, predicting, worrying, and anxiously waiting, the Vegas Golden Knights are finally putting their roster together via the expansion draft. They announced their Dallas Stars pick a few moments ago, selecting forward Cody Eakin.
Wow. So that’s it, huh? Yep, that is all she wrote.
Eakin will now head down to the desert and help Vegas open up their inaugural season on October 6, 2017. Their opening game, as ironic as it may seem, will be played in Dallas against the Stars. Someone should get on the “Cody Eakin tribute night” thing now.
That’s because Eakin has spent the majority of his NHL career with the Dallas Stars. He was traded to Dallas in the summer of 2012 by the Washington Capitals in exchange for veteran Mike Ribeiro. It was obviously a move for the Stars’ future and gave off rebuild vibes at first.
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But Eakin killed all of those vibes in his first season with the Stars. After playing in each of the 48 games during the lockout season, He posted seven goals and 24 points while playing an average of 15:05 per game.
His impressive numbers landed him a primetime spot on the Dallas Stars, and he’s been an indispensable forward ever since.
Eakin can scale the lineup, play with just about any combination (he’s played with anywhere from Benn-Seguin to Roussel-Garbutt), and constantly produce on a nightly basis.
He’s skilled in the face-off dot, can provide depth on the power play and penalty kill, and knows how to set up an offensive attack and get on the rush quickly. Not to mention that he has some sweet hands that he shows off in the shootout and on penalty shots (more on that later).
Over his five seasons with the Dallas Stars, Eakin skated in 349 games, scoring 65 goals and tallying 154 points.
At the beginning of the 2016-17 season, many assumed that Eakin would be a lock on the protection list. He was just entering the brightest part of his career and had already proved to be extremely valuable.
But a poorly timed injury sidelined Eakin for the first five weeks of the regular season, and he never seemed to be able to recover once he returned. He only posted three goals and 12 points along with a -7 rating in the past season, and those results seemed to do him in.
In his absence, centers like Devin Shore and Adam Cracknell received quality playing time and proved that they could carry the weight with Eakin on the bench. With that being said, he turned into the odd-man out.
If Eakin can recover and bounce back from his rough 2016-17 season, he could become a strong asset for the Golden Knights. We all know that Eakin is better than what last season’s stats say, but it is up to him to prove it.
Next: A Few Thoughts On Stars Home Opener vs. Vegas
Eakin was an impressive member of the Dallas Stars community and will be missed. But it’s time for Dallas to keep building towards the future. These next two weeks will be a big factor in that.