Can the Stars afford to sign John Klingberg long-term and not lose any valuable piece because of it?
Comprehensive season by season analysis of Dallas Stars cap situation all the way through 2025-26 should bring us the answer
You can call it a Klingberg dilemma. The Stars are entering the playoffs and one of their best players remains unsigned for the next season. That alone isn’t a strange occurrence. It’s happened many times during the last decade in the NHL. One of the glariest examples was Steven Stamkos, captain of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
During the negotiations, Tampa’s GM Steve Yzerman was playing hardball with Stamkos, who was courted by many intriguing teams during the final days of June 2016. One team in particular was very interested - Toronto Maple Leafs - his hometown team.
Finally, on July 29th 2016, one day before Stamkos was to become a free agent he signed an 8 year contract with Tampa Bay – giving the team a discount – at a cap friendly rate of 8.5 million AAV per year. This tough – but probably fair negotiation tactics – by Steve Yzerman is what made the Tampa Bay Lightning sustainable power house team in the NHL.
In my opinion, Jim Nill hasn’t always been the toughest negotiator out there but as an assistant GM in Detroit, he’s learned from the very same people that Steve Yzerman has. Nill helped the Red Wings in a management role to four Stanley Cup Championships in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2008. Steve Yzerman was a captain of the team in ‘97, ‘98 and 2002.
Which brings us back to 2022. Steve Y is back in Detroit as a general manager and it’s now Jim Nill’s 9th season as a Dallas Stars general manager and he faces probably the toughest negotiation yet - with soon to be 30-year old John Klingberg. I asked Mike Heika, senior staff writer for DallasStars.com, who has covered the Stars since 1994 a simple question: Will Klingberg be a Dallas Star next season?
Mike’s answer was: “No. It just doesn’t seem financially possible”.
That response triggered me to do a rather thorough analysis on if it is in fact financially impossible to sign John Klingberg long-term and at the same time - keep Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz, Jake Oettinger and other key pieces on the roster. I was genuinely curious and wanted to find out.
If the reason was something else, for example, the relationship between the management and the player is not good, it would’ve been more palatable and less intriguing to me, frankly. In order to start this exercise, we need to set up some rules, to make it as realistic as possible.
Let’s keep in mind Dallas is not in a rebuild phase and probably won’t be anytime soon. If it was, the logical thing to do would be to trade John Klingberg before this season or at the trade deadline. The return would be pretty significant and Jim Nill certainly looked at some offers but nothing blew him away. That’s why we’re gonna assume that Dallas will want to make the playoffs every year and will in fact spend right to the cap.
Another rule for this exercise - no trades. You can armchair GM this all you want on CapFriendly but I’m not a GM. Neither do I see into the mind of Jim Nill and it wouldn’t be fair as trades are really hard to come by in the current NHL. At least that's what GMs are trying to say every opportunity they have. All I can do here is to project the next contracts for some players and see if it indeed is or is not financially possible.
Moreover, it would be way too easy to just trade away some anchoring contracts, namely Lindell, Faksa or Khudobin - not to mention the captain, Jamie Benn. The reality isn’t that simple. There are no movement clauses to be honored and the Stars brass love what Lindell, Faksa and Benn bring to the team (maybe with the exception of Jim Lites for the latter).
So let’s dig in.
2022/23 Season
We know that the cap space for the upcoming 2022/23 season will be 82.5 million, going up just one million from the current 81.5 million. That alone isn’t much. What helped a bit was a seemingly bargain 1 year deal Joe Pavelski signed a few weeks ago - 5.5 million, decreasing his cap hit by 1.5 million. Smart work by Jim Nill, by the way. What about the others?
Here’s Mike Heika projecting Jason Robertson to sign a 5 year deal just below the 9 million mark - very similar to what Kirill Kaprizov signed last year. In my own projection, I see Jason Robertson signing a 3 year bridge deal worth about 8 million US dollars annually.
My comparable contract? Brayden Point, from above-mentioned Tampa Bay Lightning. He was coming off a 41 goal, 92 point season in 2018-19 season and signed a 3 year bridge deal worth 6.75 million annually. Point knew that by doing that, Tampa could keep some of its key pieces in order to win the Stanley Cup. They succeeded. And then again.
That should be the aim for the Dallas Stars as well, so I really think Jim Nill has to roll up his sleeves and persuade some of its key players to bear in mind the ultimate goal - the Stanley Cup. That’s ultimately his job. He’ll have it tougher as we now live in the (almost) flat-cap environment.
Another important piece is the young goaltender Jake Oettinger. You can go long-term and save some money in the long run or you can do the same thing you did with Jason Robertson. Bridge the guy.
We don’t need to go too far for the best comparable. You guessed it, Tampa Bay did it with Andrei Vasilevskiy - a 3 year bridge deal worth 3.5 million annually in 2017. Vasilevskiy had 90 regular season games under his belt at that point with 12 playoff appearances as well. Moreover, Juuse Saros was signed to a 3-year bridge deal worth 1.5 million annually in 2018, coming off 48 regular season appearances and 6 playoff games under his belt.
Honestly, the Saros deal is too team-friendly and in Oettinger case, I would lean more to the Vasilevskiy area eventually signing Oettinger to a 3 year deal worth around 2.75 million. He’s had 77 regular season appearances with only tipping his feet in playoff waters now and the value of the contract represents that. Almost double the worth of Saros deal, yet still under Vasilevskiy deal.
Denis Gurianov, another restricted free agent, hasn’t had the greatest of seasons but is still only 25 this summer. Maybe he would want to bet on himself and sign a 1-year deal but my feeling is Stars would like to sign him for a longer term and it’s maybe better for the player as well considering his inconsistent performances. I project signing Gurianov for 4 more years, but you can definitely make the case for more or less on the term, at just under 3 million dollars per.
This is the point where we get to John Klingberg. I’m not certain his play warrants a big ticket contract he desires, reportedly more than 60 million in total value. I like round numbers and feel if he really wants to stay in Dallas, he’d move years and AAV to a more team-friendly rate, as he proclaimed earlier this year. Also, he’s gotta be realistic. Final number? Nice, round contract worth 50 million US dollars in total for 7 years. Is it not enough? Is it an overpay? I feel it lands just in the middle to keep both sides satisfied.
Nevertheless, even if the deal is 8 years I don’t think the AAV number changes that much and would probably only go down - as I think the best comparable is Hampus Lindholm, signing an 8 year deal worth 6.5 million annually. Also that eventual one extra year in 2028-29 should be none of our worries right now.
Either way, for the purposes of this exercise let’s count the AAV of Klingberg around 7.15 million which is above his market value according to a model from The Athletic. There’ll still be some wiggle room for Nill to go up until 7.5 million area. Whether the Stars actually NEED to sign Klingberg to such a long contract is another question - one which I’ve already tried to answer here.
Here’s how the opening night roster could look for the 2022-23 campaign:
Robertson - Hintz - Pavelski
Benn - Seguin - Damiani
Peterson - Dellandrea - Gurianov
Kiviranta - Faksa - Glendening
StudeničSuter - Heiskanen
Lindell - Klingberg
Harley - Hakanpaa
HanleyOettinger
Wedgewood
Important for this Dallas Stars team is the inevitable injection of youth in Riley Damiani and Ty Dellandrea. Those two guys might be already overly marinated in the AHL but that’s the Dallas Stars way and we’re keeping things as realistic as possible here, right?
This 22-man roster account for total cap hit of $82,073,832 including $1,545,000 in bonuses which leaves us with a total cap space of $426,168. Ben Bishop is in his last year of LTIR.
Important factor coming into the calculation is the situation around Anton Khudobin. He’s currently buried in the AHL with a $2,208,333 cap hit but still appears on the books even if he’s not playing. Khudobin is scheduled to be back in training camp in September - whether that is as an active participant, that remains to be seen.
If he’s back to his 100%, Stars will have the option of sending Scott Wedgewood – who we by the way extended at $850k for the next 2 years – through waivers (or trade him away) and let Khudobin be a backup for Jake Oettinger for the final year of his contract. Under these circumstances, Stars would still be within the projected cap and have a space of $151,168.
If Anton Khudobin somehow ends up being on LTIR (albeit it’s not very likely due to the time when his injury occurred), the Stars’s cap space rises from a few hundred thousands to exactly $2,634,501 thanks to LTIR relief.
Long-term outlook for the next season could look something like this:
Bottom line is the Stars would not have any space to sign other potential free agents in summer which I don’t think they necessarily need that much. They need to improve on secondary scoring, but that should really include Klingberg in the lineup, just for the offensive metrics he brings to the team.
They could potentially try to recoup some assets via trading Klingberg’s rights but that would probably net them only a late round pick. Who would replace him in that scenario? The waters are murky on that one which is why I genuinely believe they’ll try their hardest to bring Klingberg back.
2023/2024 season
We start to enter into uncharted territory here but after the 2022/23 season there’s one thing for certain. Roope Hintz will demand what’s rightfully his - and that is a long-term big ticket contract. Do the Stars have a space for that?
According to Mike Heika, having Klingberg signed means they do not.
Let’s assume the cap goes up again only slightly from 82.5 million in 2022/23 to 84 million in 2023/24. We have expiring contracts of Ben Bishop, Anton Khudobin, Joe Pavelski, Joel Kiviranta and Luke Glendening. On the other hand, we have players like Jacob Peterson, Ty Dellandrea, Riley Damiani and most notably, Roope Hintz, ready to sign extensions.
Thanks to some shrewd drafting, Stars can expect talented youngsters Mavrik Bourque and possibly even Wyatt Johnston or Logan Stankoven to be ready for the big show. Bourque should already have one year at the AHL level under his belt. Johnston is a bit of a question mark - but you can replace him with the likes of Riley Tufte and possibly even Nick Caamano from the AHL team and let him marinate slightly longer in the AHL. In this projection I have Johnston making the team from the get-go while Logan Stankoven plays in the AHL. It could very well be the other way around, though.
Let’s say we extend Ty Dellandrea to 3 years, 2.5 million AAV, which seems reasonable enough and some would say maybe a bit rich. Jacob Peterson could be 2 years, 2 million AAV. I also project Riley Damiani for 2 years, 1.5 million AAV.
That would leave us around 9.5 million annually for the star, Roope Hintz. The length of 8 years is an absolute certainty. Seems enough, doesn’t it? The Dallas Stars have issued a bigger contract only to one player - and that was Tyler Seguin in 2018.
The roster of 21 players would ideally look something like this. Personally I don’t like having 38-year old Ryan Suter in Top 6 let alone Top 4 but let’s hope he brings some value as a 3rd pairing guy. Also, the pairings are not important, that’s for coaches to decide. You also hope Thomas Harley is a top pairing caliber guy in 2 years time. A lot will depend on young guns such as Johnston, Bourque, Dellandrea or Harley to determine whether this squad is successful in the future.
Below is the long term outlook from the season 2023-24 onwards. Keep in mind the age is not evolving with the seasons, so you need to add 2 years to every player’s age column. Another note is that Johnston, Bourque and Artem Grushnikov are still contract slide candidates, represented by a blue arrow next to their name. In this case, that would apply only to Johnston and Grushnikov, so they’re set to become RFA a year later than pictured.
Long term outlook from Season 2023-24 onwards could look something like this:
Season 2024-25
After the 2023-24 season there are a few question marks but nothing we couldn’t deal with. Thomas Harley and Mavrik Bourque are due for extensions. We mentioned Johnston’s and presumably Grushnikov’s contract would slide and expire a year later than in the screenshot above.
There are no big ticket contracts expiring that year which only means you have to bridge both as well as find replacements for unrestricted free agents Jani Hakanpaa and Scott Wedgewood.
How to create this space for those 2 bridge contracts? Again, we have to assume the cap moves a bit further up. It went 1 million up in 2022, then we projected 1.5 million raise in 2023 so logically we can project 2 million raise in 2024, no? It’s still pretty modest and most GMs will fight for bigger increases but remember, we don’t do any shortcuts here and we keep things as realistic as possible.
Well, okay. Maybe one shortcut, albeit very probable and convenient too! We buy out the last year of Ryan Suter’s contract.
Who says no? Screw it, we’re already deep in the summer of 2024. You can save 2.86 million during 2024-25 by doing this. Suter will be 39 and if he’s not already on LTIR by then, this is the move you do. Unless he’s become the second Zdeno Chara, who was pretty useful at 39 years old.
During the 2025-26 season, Suter’s dead cap hit would be 1.4 million but I’m sure the Stars would be able to digest that. Here’s the buyout calculation.
Good people at CapFriendly explain the buyout and the key exemption:
While this is a 35+ contract, it is exempt from the 35+ buyout rules because it is not front-loaded and does not have a signing bonus after the first contract year (as per the 2020 MOU).
So now we have around 9 million in cap space to bridge Thomas Harley, Mavrik Bourque and fill some gaps in the lineup, most notably on 3rd pair D and backup position. That’s certainly more than enough.
I don’t feel that certain projecting Harley’s and Bourque’s contract numbers but you can certainly go the 1 year route and then attach Harley’s big ticket to the expiry of Esa Lindell’s contract while doing the same with Bourque and expiring Radek Faksa’s deal.
After season 2025-26
Oh, look who needs a big ticket contract now!
It’s none other than Jason Robertson, future Stars captain and Jake Oettinger. We bridged them both at the beginning of the article and now we see why. Hopefully, both will be deserving of hefty raises as they’ve dragged this Stars squad to multiple Stanley Cups by now, for sure! (Hey, man can dream).
If we attach aforementioned Harley’s bridge extension to Lindell’s expiry and do the same with Bourque and Faksa - we can merge new contracts for Robertson and Jake Oettinger with the expiry of Jamie Benn’s deal and the numbers work magically.
Robertson is due a raise from 8 million to let’s say 10-12 million per year. I honestly don’t know at this point but for the sake of finishing this exercise, let’s just say 11.75 million. The term is really up in the air - but you’d guess it’s a long term deal, for sure.
Oettinger is due a significant boost too, from a modest 2.75 million to let’s say 8.5 million a year deal, long term too. That’s a total difference of 9.5 million US dollars for both key players - coincidentally the same value that finally expired in Jamie Benn’s contract signed back in 2016.
Season 2025-26 will probably be the first season without number 14 – long-time serving captain Jamie Benn – in the Stars lineup, if he manages to stay healthy until then. The guard would be almost completely changed — and it would be a team led by Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz, Miro Heiskanen, Jake Oettinger, Thomas Harley, Wyatt Johnston, Logan Stankoven, Mavrik Bourque, Riley Damiani or Ty Dellandrea supported by veterans Tyler Seguin and notably on the backend John Klingberg, who – as you remember – was the reason why we even started this whole exercise.
Well, he and Mike Heika. What started as a Klingberg dilemma ended up being much more than that.
On a final note, I believe we’ve proven that signing John Klingberg long-term is indeed financially possible. Yes, we didn’t have much space to go out and spend big in free agency but I don’t think we needed to. Mainly because there will be an influx of talented, cheap players from juniors from now on thanks to huge improvement in drafting by Stars scouts.
Nobody knows if this team will become as good as Tampa Bay for example, but the ingredients are there. That’s why drafting and developing is so key in modern NHL.