The Dallas Stars have cut their training camp roster down to 35 so far, but they’re still 12 players above where they need to be for opening night.
The Dallas Stars started training camp with 60 guys and have whittled down the roster with two rounds of cuts so far.
The first round of roster cuts, which came last week Wednesday, was primarily players going back to juniors. This included 2018 first-round pick Ty Dellandrea and highly-ranked prospect Jason Robertson.
They sent Jakob Stenqvist back to Frolunda in a one-off cut on Friday so he can spend the season in Sweden.
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With AHL camps opening this week, the Stars made their second cuts on Sunday to send some AHL players down to get ready, including Nick Caamano and Colton Point.
With 12 players left to cut, let’s take a look at where those cuts should come from.
Forwards
Still on the Roster: Jamie Benn, Blake Comeau, Erik Condra, Jason Dickinson, Justin Dowling, Remi Elie, Radek Faksa, Denis Gurianov, Martin Hanzal, Roope Hintz, Mattias Janmark, Michael Mersch, Valeri Nichushkin, Tyler Pitlick, Alexander Radulov, Brett Ritchie, Tyler Seguin, Devin Shore, Gemel Smith, Jason Spezza.
Hanzal will start the year on IR, which isn’t a cut, but does reduce the number of cuts needed to 11 for opening night.
There are already too many forwards fighting for a spot, so Condra, Dowling, and Mersch will have to go before opening night, which brings the roster down to 31.
The question at this point revolves around Hintz and Gurianov. Gurianov has played well this pre-season, but after his struggles the past few seasons and with the roster this full, there’s no way the Stars keep him up, which means they’re down to 30 players left.
Hintz, on the other hand, has really earned his chance. The Stars have enough one-way contracts to fill their forward roster needs, but Hintz looks NHL ready now. If they keep Hintz up, they have to risk sending some of their other players through waivers and pay their NHL salary.
It will probably come down to Hintz or Smith for the last forward spot. If Hintz would end up as a regular healthy scratch, he should be down in the AHL playing, but that shouldn’t be the case. He should get the chance to prove himself in the NHL, at least until Hanzal comes back, when the Stars can reassess the line-up.
That would mean risking sending Smith through waivers, but he cleared them before his arbitration hearing and he’ll probably clear them again now, and the roster would be down to 29.
Defensemen
Still on the Roster: Gavin Bayreuther, Joel Hanley, Dillon Heatherington, Miro Heiskanen, Julius Honka, Stephen Johns, John Klingberg, Esa Lindell, Marc Methot, John Nyberg, Roman Polak, Reece Scarlett
Hanley, Nyberg, and Scarlett will be easy cuts for the Stars to make to get down to 26. There’s a blue line that’s already set, and none of them had a camp that would warrant challenging that.
Bayreuther has received a lot of attention for his pre-season play so far, but there’s simply not space and he’s not at the level to push out one of the other defensemen at this point. Heatherington will get sent down to get playing time, but he’ll be on deck for injury call-ups like he was last season. Their reassignments put the roster at 24.
Goaltenders
Still on the Roster: Ben Bishop, Landon Bow, Anton Khudobin
This will be the easiest cut to make. Bow will head down, and then the Dallas Stars roster would be at 23 for opening night.
The rest of the cuts should come late this week or early next week, depending on how Nill chooses to make them, with the opening night roster being clear a few days before the first game.