Dallas Stars: Assessing Their Cap Situation Going Into 2019 Offseason

The Dallas Stars are setting themselves up for what looks to be another busy and active offseason. But before they get into the thick of the 2019 summer, what does their cap space look like? Let’s take a quick look.

What should the Dallas Stars do in the offseason ahead?

You’ve probably asked yourself this question at some point (or various points) over the past three weeks. And if so, that’s perfectly alright. Whenever your favorite team is eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs and enters the summer, it’s usually the first question that comes to mind.

And, like it has been in seasons past, it’s an interesting one for the Stars that could end up having multiple answers.

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It all depends on what GM Jim Nill has on his mind.

After putting together one of their most successful seasons in the past decade, the Dallas Stars look to be on the verge of something great. Their 2018-19 season consisted of a slow start, plenty of doubt and adversity, a strong turnaround near the All-Star Break, a surge to the finish line, and a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. From there, they defeated the Nashville Predators in a six-game series in round one and fell one goal short of a trip to the Western Conference Final after losing in Game 7 of their second round matchup with the St. Louis Blues.

And while the future looks incredibly promising with head coach Jim Montgomery at the helm and an established core of players, Dallas has whiffed in this situation before. Back in 2016, they won the Central division and entered the playoffs as the top seed in the Western Conference. They endured an eerily similar fate by losing in Game 7 of the second round to the Blues, but still set themselves up for a bright future. That set up quickly came crashing down, though, as the Stars crumbled in the 2016-17 season and missed the playoffs by 15 points.

So while there is a certain sense of promise lingering, the Stars must find a way to capitalize on it. That’s where the 2019 offseason comes into play.

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While the 2018-19 Dallas Stars looked like a competitive bunch that could have made a run at the Stanley Cup, there’s always room for improvement in certain areas. And so, the offseason lens that includes the draft and free agency is applied.

But while many fans love to ask what the Stars should do in the offseason ahead, the more feasible question is what the Stars can do in the upcoming offseason. After all, there’s only so much that they can do before their cap space becomes an enemy.

So, before you dig into who you think the Dallas Stars should target and which pending free agents you think they should sign to extensions, let’s take a quick look at the cap space they have to work with.

When the Stars officially entered the 2019 offseason following exit interviews on May 9, the focus quickly fell onto the cap. And at the time, they sat at just over $22 million in space, leaving them with a good amount to spend.

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But then, they made their first substantial move of the summer. One week after exit interviews, Dallas agreed to terms on a six-year extension with defenseman Esa Lindell. The extension will pay Lindell an AAV of $5.8 million and will keep the skilled defender in Dallas through the 2024-25 season.

And while the extension took a chunk out of their space, it was a necessary step. Lindell proved himself to be a worthy piece of the Dallas blue line over the past two seasons and looks to be a cornerstone for the defense going forward.

So, with Lindell locked down, let’s take a look at the Dallas Stars’ 2019 cap space situation.

At the moment, the Stars have 18 players under contract for the 2019-20 season. 11 forwards, five defensemen, and two goaltenders currently make up the Dallas roster. As we already know, every team is made up of at least 12 forwards, six defensemen, and two goaltenders, as well as up to three extra players from any position for a total of 23 roster players.

With that being said, the Stars currently have around $66.5 million already spread out across their current roster. And with the NHL expected to raise the cap to $83 million, that leaves the Stars with a little over $16.4 million to spend in the summer ahead.

Now, they will spend some of that on their pending RFAs and possibly some of their UFAs. Jason Dickinson and Mattias Janmark will likely both get new contracts with an AAV around $2 million. And if you want to play it safe and assume that their other two RFAs (Brett Ritchie and Julius Honka) will also get new deals, that brings the total down another $3.5 million or so.

But, there’s no certainty that Ritchie and/or Honka will be on the roster on opening night. Considering both served as healthy scratches for the majority of the season, Nill might get their names involved in the trade market while hunting down another player or extra draft picks.

If all of that does go according to plan (and be prepared for it not to), let’s assume that the Dallas Stars will have around $8.9 million to spend on free agents in the offseason ahead.

One of the top priorities on their list is to re-sign forward Mats Zuccarello to a new contract. The 31-year-old is a pending UFA but served as a catalyst for a struggling Dallas offense from the moment he arrived in Dallas at the 2019 Trade Deadline. Bringing him back seems like a top necessity.

So, if Zuccarello were to get an estimated $6.2 million or so, that brings the Stars down to $2.7 million left to spend. And while that could bring in an average player, it’s not enough to land a major name on the market.

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But, there’s an outlier in this situation. Martin Hanzal spent much of the 2018-19 season on injured reserve and was eventually moved to long-term IR in order to free up some cap space at the deadline. The center only played in seven games this past year and just couldn’t get back up to game speed after having spinal fusion surgery at the end of the 2017-18 season.

There’s doubt in Hanzal’s future status, including the chance that his NHL career might be over for the sake of his long-term health. If that’s the case, his AAV of $4.75 million could prove to be incredibly beneficial to the Stars.

While they wouldn’t be able to move him to long-term IR until opening night, the opportunity would be there to spend his cap hit on another player. And with his cap space in hand, that would offer the Stars around $7.4 million to work with. We likely won’t know anymore on Hanzal’s status until we get deeper into the offseason, but it’s something to keep an eye on.

The same goes for defenseman Stephen Johns. After signing a three-year extension in the 2018 offseason but missing the entire 2018-19 campaign with post traumatic headaches, his future is also up for questioning. If he does in fact have a chance to return, he can fill a void on the Dallas blue line that is being created by four Stars defenders that are set to be UFAs this summer.

But if he cannot play and shifts to long-term IR for another season, that’s potentially another $2.3 million that the Stars can use.

Both Hanzal and Johns can only be listed as question marks at this point, though.

And so, we’ve come to the conclusion that all of this is confusing and there’s no effective way to determine what is coming, right? Well, sort of.

What we know as of right now is that the Dallas Stars have around $16.4 million in cap space. After allotting some money for restricted free agents in need of new contracts, it looks as though they will have somewhere around $9 million to spend in the offseason ahead. Part of that might go to Mats Zuccarello or another pending UFA, leaving the Stars with a little bit of space to work with. If they trade away Honka or Ritchie, that could potentially open up some more space.

There will also need to be some space for potential call-ups. Players like Denis Gurianov, Joel L’Esperance, Gavin Bayreuther, and Dillion Heatherington might be viewed as full-time NHL options going into next season, so those names will have to come into play when discussing roster spots and the potential of going after a big-name free agent.

And if Hanzal or Johns falls into the long-term IR category, Dallas might have enough space to take a swing at a sizable player on the market (perhaps a second-pairing defender to put alongside Miro Heiskanen).

But there’s a lot of moving parts and there are a number of ways that the chips could fall for the Stars. Regardless of how their situation pans out, though, Dallas should have enough space to make a quality move if they want to, but not enough space to break the bank and go after Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene, or Jeff Skinner.

That’s what the offseason is all about, though. The next month should shed some more light on the Stars’ situation and give them a better outlook on what all they can do as July 1 approaches.