Dallas Stars: Assessing Their Moves On Day One Of Free Agency

It wasn’t the most expected first day of free agency for the Dallas Stars. But regardless of expectations, the team made some sizable moves. Let’s look at each of their major ones.

It’s Monday, July 2, 2018, and the Dallas Stars have yet to make a sizable move. That may sound a little unusual and worrisome, but it’s the truth.

The Stars spent the first day of free agency in a different way than most expected to. Stars media, analysts, and fans entered the period with a concrete plan of what Dallas needed to do, and it looked something like this.

• Get a solid backup goaltender that can take the starting role when necessary
• Add forward depth to serve on the second line and provide a scoring punch

That was basically it. Those needs were the Stars’ biggest hindrances in the 2017-18 season, so it only made sense to fix them with July 1.

And there was plenty of chatter surrounding the team pre-free agency as well. The John Tavares sweepstakes was ongoing and Dallas was one of the six teams in play to land him. On top of that, they had been linked to a few different players on the morning of July 1, though nothing was confirmed at the time. Everything seemed to be going according to plan for the Stars.

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But then, all of a sudden, it didn’t. Once free agency opened, Dallas went in a significantly different direction, leaving their fans confused and a bit lost.

Once Tavares announced that he was heading to Toronto to play with the Leafs, GM Jim Nill was off and running. He got the goaltender the Stars needed, signing Anton Khudobin to a two-year deal.

But after that, everything else kind of filed in unexpectedly. The Stars also signed defenseman Roman Polak and forward Blake Comeau, along with bringing back forward Valeri Nichushkin. In addition, they also signed players for organizational depth, including Michael Mersch, Erik Condra, Joel Hanley, Colton Point, and Joel L’Esperance.

Chances are you probably needed a second to digest all of these moves. They were definitely not expected, and some of them could be argued as completely unnecessary.

Well, that’s why we’re here to help. After talking with Nill and some of the newest Stars yesterday, we’ve broken down the reasoning and positives to each of the major signings made by Dallas. By major signings, I’m talking about the first four names (Khudobin, Polak, Comeau, Nichushkin). In other words, the ones that will start the year in Dallas and have an impact on the Dallas Stars next season.

Here is a look at each of the four. In addition, we’ve also added a brief breakdown of the depth players that signed and some quote from Nill’s interview at the end of the slideshow.