Dallas Stars: Ranking Each Offseason Of Jim Nill Era
By Josh Clark
4. The 2014 Offseason
Notable additions: C Jason Spezza, RW Ales Hemsky, RW Patrick Eaves, D Julius Honka, G Anders Lindback
Notable subtractions: LW Ray Whitney, RW Alex Chiasson, G Tim Thomas
The 2016 offseason is the only instance throughout the Jim Nill era where the Dallas Stars did not make at least one blockbuster move.
With that being said, these final four off-seasons were kind of difficult to rank. But there are some underlying factors that make some better than others.
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The Stars didn’t lose a whole lot in the 2014 offseason but made some serious waves on the acquisition side of things. They traded for superstar center Jason Spezza, right wings Ales Hemsky and Patrick Eaves, and drafted a young defensive genius in Julius Honka.
But it wasn’t so much the strong additions they made on offense as much as it was the lack of help they added in the back end. The Stars stayed quiet in terms of adding defensive help during the offseason and paid for it dearly in the regular season. Dallas finished the season 26th in the league in terms of goals against per game and could not stay afloat most games.
In the crease, things were just as bad. Anders Lindback was signed on to be the next backup goaltender, but was traded away in early February after an ugly and short-lived career with the Stars. He never put together consistent starts, struggled on a regular basis, and left the majority of the work on Kari Lehtonen, who happened to turn in one of the worst seasons of his career.
The offense was greatly enhanced, finishing with the second highest goals for total in the NHL. That fact becomes even more shocking when you realize that even with the offensive firepower, the Stars still missed the playoffs by seven points. It’s a testament to just how inexperienced and unbalanced the Dallas blue line and crease was.
While Nill did a great job at strengthening up the offense and adding scoring power with Spezza, Hemsky and Eaves, he missed out on rounding out the team as a whole.