The Stars can run it back, but may have missed their best chance at a Cup
The Dallas Stars won't lose too many key contributors in free agency, but replicating their 2022-23 success will still be difficult.
The Dallas Stars entered the 2023 postseason seeming to have all the ingredients required for a successful run.
Dallas had an elite goaltender in Jake Oettinger, a franchise defenseman in Miro Heiskanen, a group of forwards with an appealing mix of youth and experience — including a bonafide superstar up front in Jason Robertson — plus a few useful rentals to add some depth.
The question now is whether the 2023-24 Stars are likely to repeat that success.
What Dallas has going for it is the fact that few of its top contributors project to leave in free agency. Max Domi and Evgeni Dadonov gave the forward corps some juice and may be on the way out. Depth guys like Luke Glendening, Joel Kiviranta and Fredrik Olofsson are also hitting the free-agent market.
That group of five forwards combined for 41 points during the regular season, though. These are not the players who made Dallas successful. The team also has its top seven defenceman signed through 2023-24, as well as its goalie tandem of Oettinger and Scott Wedgewood.
With a projected $7.39 million in cap space, the Stars even have a little bit of room to shop for some upgrades around the edges of their roster. If they really want to bring Domi or Dadonov back that's far from off the table, too.
It's clear that the Stars, on balance, find themself in an enviable position. The issue the team is faced with is whether they can expect the same results from the same group. Part of what made the Stars so intriguing as a team this year was the way they meshed up-and-comers like Robertson and Roope Hintz with their old-guard duo of Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn — plus all-time playoff performer Joe Pavelski.
Robertson and Hintz can be expected to replicate their strong campaigns, but it's not clear the same can be said for the other three.
Benn is coming off a bounce-back season after four consecutive years posting between 35 and 53 points and scoring 20-plus goals just once. He'll turn 34 during the offseason and his even-strength possession metrics have been underwater for two years. If he can't replicate the 17.4% shooting percentage he managed in 2022-23, it seems fair to project a drop-off for him.
Unlike Benn, Seguin didn't have a particularly strong year in 2022-23. He's produced either 49 or 50 points in three of the last four seasons and even though he's just 31, his utility as a top-six player is wavering. The 16:37 he skated during the regular season was his lowest average since he was a 19-year-old rookie.
Pavelski is an interesting case, because nothing in his numbers clearly indicates that decline is on the way. His goal total has improved every year he's been a Star and he's coming off two seasons where he played 164 games and compiled 158 points. In the playoffs he ranked second on the team in goals and third in points.
The only issue with Pavelski is his age. He'll turn 39 prior to 2023-24 and just four 39-year-olds in NHL history have matched the 77-point output Pavelski managed last season. He may keep on rolling, but it seems fair to project some age-related regression.
If Benn, Seguin, and Pavelski have a hard time replicating their production, the enviable scoring depth the Stars possessed this season could easily erode. The ascending Wyatt Johnson could help cancel out some of the losses, but he's just one player.
Dallas remains in a better position than the vast majority of the teams in the NHL entering 2023-24, but if Father Time takes a bite out of its secondary scoring, this year may look like a missed opportunity.
