Dallas Stars Rumors: Stars Signing Anton Khudobin, Roman Polak

The free agency period has yet to officially begin in the NHL, but the Dallas Stars are already making moves. Early reports on Sunday morning have linked the team to both Anton Khudobin and Roman Polak.

The Dallas Stars didn’t take long on Sunday morning to make free agency both exciting and confusing.

Around 7:30 a.m. this morning, news began to break around the NHL. While John Tavares continues his holdout and has yet to reveal any information, the rest of the NHL is rolling in free agency news.

And the Stars, as they always seem to be, are right in the middle of it.

Early reports have linked Dallas to two free agents in particular. Those free agents are goaltender Anton Khudobin from Boston and defenseman Roman Polak from Toronto. One was previously reported as being connected with the Stars, but the other one comes as a bit of a shock.

Throughout Saturday afternoon and evening, word began to spread that the Dallas Stars had agreed on a deal with Khudobin. The 32-year-old goaltender has played for four different clubs in his nine-year NHL career, and has solidified his title as a reliable backup. Dallas, who was in need of a backup coming into today, seems to have found a quality match.

The deal was initially reported by Darren Dreger as a two-year contract worth an AAV of $2.5 million. That’s a solid contract length and value for a veteran backup goaltender and a terrific way to kick off free agency for the Stars.

Moments later, however, the Stars took an unexpected turn in the free agency market. It was reported by Renaud Lavoie that Dallas had agreed to a deal with UFA Roman Polak. The 32-year-old defenseman spent much of the past four seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Polak is by all means a veteran defender and is known as a defensive defenseman. He’s a right-handed shot and brings a good amount of playoff experience to the table (including being a part of the Sharks team that went to the Stanley Cup Final in 2016).

But the question revolving around this one is: why? Coming into July 1, defense seemed to be the last thing Dallas needed. And with John Klingberg, Stephen Johns, and Julius Honka already on the right side, why do you need another piece? Unless one of those players is being heavily used by the Stars in trade talks, there doesn’t seem to be a pressing need for a physical blue liner.

A few minutes later, Bob McKenzie tweeted out that it was confirmed that Polak would land in Dallas. So, a one-year deal seems pretty much guaranteed at this point. It’s an interesting signing, and we’ll hear more from Nill on it later in the day.

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In other news

In other Dallas Stars UFA news, there are reports that Greg Pateryn has agreed to a three-year deal with the Minnesota Wild. The deal is reportedly worth almost $3 million, which is a significant pay raise from last season. And after an impressive effort in his first full season of playing in the NHL, he’s earned it.

There has yet to be any other significant rumblings about pending Stars UFAs at the time this article was published around 9 a.m.

And throughout the rest of the league, it looks like David Perron is heading to St. Louis and Paul Stastny is a favorite to land in Vegas. Both would have been solid options for the Stars in terms of depth scoring, so that market continues to grow thinner. We’ll see where else it goes.

Next: What To Keep An Eye On As Stars Open Free Agency

But stay tuned both here and on our Twitter page throughout the rest of the day. This day has already taken a weird twist and official signings cannot even take place for another two hours. How exciting, right?