Dallas Stars<\/p>\n
Last season: 50-20-12, lost in first round of playoffs.<\/p>\n
COACH: Glen Gulutzan (114-77-21 over three seasons in two stints with the Stars).<\/p>\n
SEASON OPENER: Oct. 2 vs. St. Louis.<\/p>\n
DEPARTURES: C Mavrik Bourque, D Tyler Myers, D Alexander Petrovic.<\/p>\n
ADDITIONS: F Joel Kiviranta.<\/p>\n
GOALIES: Jake Oettinger (35-12-6, 2.59 goals-against average, .899 save percentage), Casey DeSmith (15-8-6, 2.43, .907).<\/p>\n
What to expect<\/p>\n
Another deep playoff run, like the three consecutive appearances in the Western Conference Final the Stars made before losing a first-round series in six games to Minnesota last season. The roster is pretty much the same for the second season of Gulutzan\u2019s second stint with the team, and many of the players were also part of those trips to the Western Conference Finals from 2023-25.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited about the season,\u201d general manager Jim Nill said. \u201cWe know we\u2019ve got a good team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Top scorer Jason Robertson (45 goals, 51 assists) is back, along with five other players who had at least 44 points: 23-year-old center Wyatt Johnston, going into his fifth season, Mikko Rantanen, top defenseman Miro Heiskanen, Matt Duchene and Roope Hintz. Jake Oettinger has won 173 regular-season games in the past five seasons, and Tampa Bay\u2019s Andrei Vasilevskiy is the only NHL goalie in that span with more (180).<\/p>\n
Strengths and weaknesses<\/p>\n
The good: Along with all their scoring depth, the Stars were pretty good at preventing goals. They allowed only 2.71 goals a game last season, second in the league to division rival Colorado\u2019s 2.40. Gulutzan is clearly a more seasoned coach than his first stint with the Stars from 2011-13, an awkward period for the franchise as it went through bankruptcy and an ownership change while being basically run by the league.<\/p>\n
The not-so-good: Another season with questions about Robertson\u2019s future. He avoided salary arbitration with a $12 million contract, but could become an unrestricted free agent next summer. The earliest a contract extension with the Stars could happen is Jan. 1. Without one before the trade deadline on March 1, there will be questions about whether the Stars would deal Robertson to avoid possibly losing him next summer for nothing. Dallas had a sign-and-trade deal in place to send him to Seattle during the NHL draft in June, but Robertson didn\u2019t agree to a reported $120 million, eight-year contract ($15 million a season) with the Kraken that was necessary to complete that deal.<\/p>\n
Players to watch<\/p>\n
Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin go into their 14th and maybe final season together. This will be the 37-year-old Benn\u2019s 18th NHL season, all with the Stars, and he is again playing on a one-year contract. Seguin won a Stanley Cup title as a rookie with Boston in 2011 before being traded to Dallas in 2013, at the same time Benn became the Stars’ captain. Seguin was limited to 47 games the past two seasons because of hip and knee injuries and is at the end of a $78.8 million, eight-year contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are where we are and just trying to take advantage of these last opportunities we have,\u201d Seguin said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Stars Last season: 50-20-12, lost in first round of playoffs. COACH: Glen Gulutzan (114-77-21 over three seasons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,1115],"class_list":["post-445074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-dallas-stars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}