Summer arrived sooner for the Stars than they would have liked. Instead of preparing to face the Edmonton Oilers this week, players will be making their way home. While the team is done on the ice, things are just getting started off the ice.
The Stars have important things to address in the coming days, weeks and months. There will be a time, likely in the dog days of August, when things slow down for a bit but that time is not now. With the season ending, head coach Rick Bowness’ contract has expired. Nothing stands in the way of the open market anymore for John Klingberg. A new draft slot has been finalized, as the Stars will pick at No. 18 in July in Montreal.
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All of these things are coming within the next couple of months. Let’s examine the Stars’ busy 2022 offseason checklist (items are listed in no particular order).
1. Head coach
Bowness took over as head coach in Dec. 2019 and has compiled an 89-62-25 record, which is the 16th-best in the NHL over that span. That ranks him right in the middle of the NHL, and he also has two playoff trips, including one to the Stanley Cup Final. In exit interviews on Tuesday, Bowness, who is 67, brushed off the inclination that he could be weighing retirement.
“Playoffs bring out your passion. That excitement and that pressure and everything, man, that’s what we live for and that’s what we sign up for,” Bowness said. “I just loved it. I’m not emotional but at the end of that game, I have tears in my eyes because it’s over. It’s because everyone lays it on the line and gives you everything you can and it’s tough to walk out of that rink losing in overtime of Game 7. But it also shows you that, yeah, I’m an old man, but there’s still lots of fire left in me.”
Bowness also said that at this point in his career, he’s only looking for a one-year contract.
“That doesn’t bother me one bit,” Bowness said. “Everyone wants the security, I don’t need that at all. Whether I have a two or three-year contract, that doesn’t bother me one bit. That means nothing to me because if, at the end of the year, I have three more years (on a contract), if I want to retire, I’m still going to retire so the one-year deal, that’s perfect for me.”
The verdict on Bowness and the Stars’ overall coaching direction should come soon. General manager Jim Nill said he plans to talk with Stars owner Tom Gaglardi about which direction the team wants to go in. Nill’s history and future is also a potential factor in all of this, given that Bowness has been the fourth head coach in Nill’s nine-year run in Dallas. Nill has one year remaining on his contract.
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“I’m not worried about my contract, personally,” Nill said. “I’m not worried about that. Does that come into when we hire a coach? We’ll have to wait and see, see if that comes into play.”
Nill said the first step would be to evaluate Bowness before any consideration of which external options are available, a pool that recently added Barry Trotz and Peter DeBoer.
Another thing to monitor as it pertains to coaching is how the rest of the staff is handled, should the team move on from Bowness. Assistants Derek Laxdal, Todd Nelson and John Stevens could be let go, but goaltending coach Jeff Reese may be a tougher decision. Reese is one of the best in the NHL at his job and has a tremendous relationship with Jake Oettinger.
2. John Klingberg and other unrestricted free agents
John Klingberg’s contract has been a hot topic for over a year now but it’s nearing a conclusion, one way or the other. In two months, Klingberg will either be committed to Dallas for while or he will be warming up to another NHL franchise for the first time in his career.
Klingberg said that there have not been any new developments in contract negotiations. The last he heard about his contract was at the trade deadline and it wasn’t any sort of advanced discussion. On Tuesday, Klingberg reiterated his desire to remain in Dallas, if possible.
Klingberg didn’t have a great start to the season, on multiple fronts. He suffered a scary-looking injury in the season opener that ultimately only sidelined him for a few games. But he had 26 points in his first 47 games of the season. Klingberg’s production picked up on the back end, though, and he finished the season by scoring 21 points in his last 27 games.
There are a lot of factors in play for both sides. For Klingberg, he’s in a comfort zone in Dallas, the franchise that drafted and developed him. The Stars gave him a seven-year deal after his rookie season when he wasn’t expecting it.
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“I thought it was going to be probably a one- or two-year deal, and they wanted to sign me long-term,” Klingberg said. “At that time, seven years ago, I was obviously surprised and happy that they wanted me for seven years. Hopefully, we can get something similar done here.”
Times have changed since Klingberg inked that contract. The biggest factor is Klingberg’s age, as he’ll be 30 when next season begins. There’s also the salary cap, which is still a flat cap as the league works through COVID-19 ramifications. The Stars also have some large deals already on the books and a few large deals that are coming up.
“We’ll see,” Klingberg said. “They’re going to have their standpoints, we’re probably going to have our standpoint. We’ll try to meet in the middle, I guess.”
While Klingberg is the headliner, the Stars have a couple of other notable unrestricted free agents. Michael Raffl had a good season and an especially strong postseason, which helped boost his value. He played this season on a one-year, $1.1 million deal and will probably be looking for a raise. The Stars acquired Vlad Namestnikov at the trade deadline and have interest in bringing him back.
On the flip side, Alexander Radulov, Andrej Sekera and Braden Holtby likely have played their final games in Dallas.
3. Figure out the goaltender situation
Obviously, the starting position is set after the season and postseason Oettinger had, but the backup spot is a bit murky. The Stars have Anton Khudobin under contract for another season and Nill said a “big part” of the evaluation for that position will be Khudobin’s rehab from season-ending hip surgery in March. If he’s on track to make a full recovery, the Stars may opt to use him as the backup, knowing Oettinger will be handling the bulk of the workload.
The Stars acquired Scott Wedgewood at the trade deadline from the Arizona Coyotes and he’s also in play to return. Wedgewood is an unrestricted free agent and will be looking for a multi-year deal. He performed well in his seven starts to end the regular season.
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The Stars may have some talent in the pipeline that could be seen as NHL backup material down the road but for next season, the spot behind Oettinger remains a question mark that needs an answer this summer.
4. Restricted free agent contracts
Speaking of Oettinger, he’s a restricted free agent, as is his 2017 draftmate, Jason Robertson. Both players are in line to receive significant raises but what those new contracts will look like is still a little unclear.
The Stars will likely accommodate anything that’s remotely reasonable for both players, given that Oettinger is the team’s franchise goaltender and Robertson is arguably the team’s best forward. Oettinger is 23 years old and Robertson is 22 so neither has yet to enter his prime.
Oettinger and Robertson, both of whom said they haven’t thought much about their potential new deals yet, have to consider a couple of things. If both players continue on their trajectory, they will be due for an even bigger contract on their next deals. Do they want that next deal to come up when they’re in their mid-20s or when they’re approaching 30? Do they want to get all they can right now or wait to cash in even more when the league’s salary cap is at a healthier place?
Either way, the future is bright for Oettinger and Robertson. Whether it’s this offseason or later, the team’s highest-paid forward, goaltender and defenseman will come from their spectacular 2017 draft haul.
The restricted free agent in a more complicated situation is Denis Gurianov. The Stars forward turns 25 in a couple of weeks and is coming off of a tumultuous season that saw him get healthy-scratched multiple times, including a few games in the playoff series against the Flames before an injury to Roope Hintz got him in the lineup for Game 7.
“It was a tough year for him but he’s like a lot of other guys,” Nill said. “A lot of other guys had tough years, too. I want to hear what his feedback is, why he thought things happened. We forget these guys are human beings themselves and there’s a lot going on in their lives, too. I want to see where that is and then it’s important for him to come back and have a good summer and train and come back and show us who he can be again.”
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5. How else to upgrade?
The Stars are going to be pretty tight against the cap when all of the ink dries. How, then, do they go about upgrading the roster? When a team’s summer starts in May, there’s usually a reason for that but the Stars don’t have a lot of room to work with.
A lot of the help will likely come from internal options. Ty Dellandrea had a strong Game 7, when inserted on short notice, and looks a lot more NHL-ready than he did last year when he was forced into the lineup due to injuries. The Stars played Fredrik Karlstrom this season and he could also be an option. They also need to figure out what they have in Riley Tufte. The Stars also have prospects in juniors with intriguing talent, with Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque — and headlined by Wyatt Johnston. Are they ready for duty in the big league? Thomas Harley will almost surely be counted on to make the full-time jump as well.
The Stars have shown that they won’t rush a player’s development for immediate needs, if at all possible. Their cap situation could require them to take some risks.
Injury updates
The Stars’ injury list this offseason is much shorter and less concerning than it’s been in years past. Tyler Seguin fractured his foot in Game 1 of the Calgary series. The recovery timeline for that is four to six weeks and it won’t require surgery.
Hintz injured his oblique in the third period of Game 6. A reaction to the treatment of that injury forced him to miss Game 7 but he should recover without any surgery.
Luke Glendening missed his first game as a Star when he was unable to play in Game 7. Glendening had concussion symptoms after absorbing a hit to the head in Game 6 from Nikita Zadorov. When he fell to the ice on that same hit, Glendening twisted his knee. Nill said he would have likely missed two to four weeks.
Khudobin’s health will factor into how the Stars approach the backup goaltender spot. He had a right hip arthroscopy and labral repair on March 14. The recovery time was announced to be six months, putting him on track to return for training camp.
(Top photo: Glenn James / NHLI via Getty Images)