What do the Stars need to legitimately contend for the Stanley Cup?

Let's have a look on how far they actually are from truly contending.

Jun 08, 2022

How Western Conference champion Stars were built

Wyatt Johnston, Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque. Possibly even Antonio Stranges, Connor Roulette, Francesco Arcuri, Artem Grushnikov. These are the current hottest prospects from the junior leagues that could all very well be part of the Dallas Stars team within the next 2 or 3 years.

Add to the mix current AHL incumbents like Ty Dellandrea, Riley Damiani, Thomas Harley or Fredrik Karlstrom.

And the best news for the Stars is probably the fact that they already have a very young core proven on the NHL level in goalie Jake Oettinger, All-Star defenseman Miro Heiskanen and a couple of elite forwards in Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz.

This all sounds like a possible contender for years to come. Of course, the development of young players is always a curvy line with many hiccups along the way. However, you can sense the excitement among the Stars fans when talking about the future and that hasn’t always been the case in the DFW area.

Mixing up and coming super talents with already established NHL players delivering above expected value will be the key in order to achieve something that hasn’t been done by a hockey team in Dallas since last century – win a Stanley Cup. That might sound a bit dramatic, given they did it in the last year of the previous century – 1999 – but the point stands.

What should the average NHL Stanley Cup contender should have among forwards?

There is an actual checklist, courtesy of Dom Luszczyszyn from The Athletic.

Elite first-line center that’s among the very best players in the world.
Elite first-line winger to support the elite center.
Two other top-line wingers on each of the top two lines.
Top-line center to play behind the elite center.
Two more top-six forwards for depth in the middle six.
A top-10 caliber starting goaltender.

Roster building is sort of like cooking: every flavor has merit, but the most delicious meals are crafted with the right high-quality ingredients from a chef who knows how to mix everything together. The Stanley Cup recipe is a difficult one to master as there are different ways to interpret it, but looking at how it was cooked before offers some helpful patterns toward success. Based on a decade of championship meals from the 2010s, there are 10 common elements to look for when crafting a team worthy of contending.
Dom Luszczyszyn

First, as you can see, you need an elite 1-2 punch on center position with players who can score and be dominant on both ends of the ice. The Stars could definitely have that in Wyatt Johnston and Roope Hintz. Gone are the days when the hopes and dreams of Stars loyals hinged on the capacity of one Tyler Seguin.

Seguin now has two ways to go and evolve as a player. Either as a very effective defensive minded center who could anchor your 3rd line and still provide scoring punch and some powerplay ability - or an offensive catalyst focusing on extended offensive-zone time and full commitment to powerplay conversion, like Patrice Bergeron in recent years. That would probably leave him on a wing of either Johnston or Hintz.

What you need to complement your star centers is the ability to convert from the wing. Luckily, the Stars had a couple of great steals at the draft floor in the recent year in the form of Mavrik Bourque (picked 30th overall in 2020), Jason Robertson (39th overall in 2017) and Logan Stankoven (48th overall in 2021). These players on the wing should be star-level caliber as well to be dangerous as a Top 6 unit rather than just your first line, like it was for the last couple of seasons.

Some combination of Jason Robertson – Roope Hintz – Wyatt Johnston – Logan Stankoven – Tyler Seguin – Mavrik Bourque or some other trade / free agent acquisition should be good enough to have your offensive part of the lineup set.

That leaves us with a bottom 6 and the probable combination of players like Ty Dellandrea – Riley Damiani – Jacob Peterson with other options that will be up for debate in Radek Faksa, Jamie Benn or even Denis Gurianov. Add some on-the-fence players like Riley Tufte, Marian Studenic and Matej Blumel into the mix, too. I personally wouldn’t sleep on Blumel, the Stars acquired him just recently and he has some potential to be an impact player in a year or two.

Here’s how the forward lineup could look no sooner than in the 2023/24 season.

Robertson - Hintz - Bourque
Stankoven - Johnston - Seguin
Benn - Dellandrea - Gurianov
Peterson - Faksa - Damiani

I still think Radek Faksa could be a useful NHL player and you need the type he is especially in the playoffs, but if he’s still underperforming the way he was the last 2 seasons, he is the obvious trade candidate alongside Denis Gurianov. Overall, this line up has only already in-house players in it and I really think it can be regarded as a true contender’s forward group from 2024 onwards.

What do you need to have on defense to be regarded as such, though?

Again, first — the list.

Elite No. 1 defenseman.
A second No. 1 defenseman to play behind him.
A top-pairing defenseman to help anchor a strong second pair with the No. 2.
Another top-pairing caliber defender to crush soft minutes on the third pair.

Well, you clearly need to have a bonafide NHL All Star. For cap reasons, that player should ideally be on a long-term deal with a cap hit no greater than 8.5 million. Luckily, the Dallas Stars have just that in Miro Heiskanen. Check.

You would also need a guy who is number 2 on your team but would normally be The Guy on many other teams. In a perfect world, this place would be reserved for the old John Klingberg from the bubble but we know his production has dipped recently and there is a huge question mark whether he’s returning to the Stars with a looming free agency on the horizon.

The Stars have allocated almost 9.5 million to the duo of Esa Lindell and Ryan Suter for the next 3 years and you can arguably wonder if that isn’t too much for the actual return they are getting from it. None of the two is the top pairing quality guy that can anchor the second line by himself. The next time you’ll be mad at John Klingberg asking for his fair share, remember the Stars paid other defensemen quite a lot for what they’re actually bringing to the team.

Ideal armchair-GM scenario would be to buy-out Ryan Suter, trade Esa Lindell and acquire the big right handed D that costs less and is able to move the puck better – think Brendon Carlo among others – and also, if possible, re-sign John Klingberg. If you add very solid prospects in the form of Thomas Harley and Artem Grushnikov to the mix, you could end up with a D-core that is really close to the true contenter tier.

Something like this:

Heiskanen - Klingberg
Harley - Carlo or other RHD (Liljegren, Lundkvist, …)
Grushnikov - Hakanpaa

This D-core has pretty much everything. Heiskanen, Klingberg and Harley can man the power-play. Grushnikov, Carlo and Hakanpaa can focus more on penalty-kill where they’d definitely receive some help from Miro Heiskanen himself.

What is the key here for Jim Nill? Focus more on the right side and off-load some of the left-handed D that don’t bring that much of a value. You should aim for Miro Heiskanen playing on his strong side and statistically for your team, John Klingberg or even an acquisition like Brendan Carlo could be an ideal partner for him.

That’s the only outside acquisition (sans backup goalie) that I would encourage to find. The Bruins are on the verge of rebuilding and I wouldn’t mind paying top price for a guy like Brendon Carlo. He’s signed for the next 5 years at a very good price, just 4.1 million AAV. He’d definitely cost a first round pick and then some more probably but sometimes, you just gotta pull the trigger on such deals.

Even if you don’t re-sign Klingberg and keep Lindell, you still have a formidable Top 4 of Heiskanen - Harley - Lindell - Carlo to play with.

For a goalie? You just basically need a top-10 caliber starting goaltender, according to Dom.

Goalie position is very clear but only for a 50% of its capacity and that may or may not be enough. Jake Oettinger is your goaltender of the present and the future. You definitely need a goalie like him to chase cups on a regular basis.

What you need more and more nowadays is a reliable backup goalie who is ready to play at least 25 games in the regular season to give your proven starter much needed rest. The best way is having him as a 1B option whenever Oettinger would face injury, illness or whatever that would keep him off the ice. Think Anton Khudobin in the 2018-19 season.

I don’t necessarily think Scott Wedgewood is that so you’ll probably need a bit of an upgrade there, either this or next offseason. Eric Comrie or healthy Braden Holtby come to mind.

This is what the Stars actually had coming into the playoffs this season.

You can see they have some pieces, but they’re lacking in both forward and defense depth. Oettinger was not considered an elite goalie, but he will be in a very near future. The Stars also have help coming for the forwards so the only area that you need to be proactive in is the defense.

Roster of aforementioned players could definitely make some noise from 2024 onwards. All of the key guys in it would be in or actually before their primes so you would really have an extended Stanley Cup window for at least 5-6 years. That should be imperative for the ownership as well as management group.

For that, I really see the upcoming 2022-23 season as a transition period into success with a new core. Yes, you can try to get into the playoffs and maybe some prospects like Wyatt Johnston would already be a part of your team. What you really need is to give your potential best players space to develop into contender contributors one way or the other.

Be it on a power play for Thomas Harley, penalty kill for Ty Dellandrea or see what you’ve got in Denis Gurianov when paired with top players like Robertson or Hintz. You can have Ryan Suter play another year of his unnecessarily long deal before you buy him out which will then cost you less. You can explore the trade market for Radek Faksa or – dare I say it – Jamie Benn.

Give an extended look for Mavrik Bourque before sending him to AHL to play 20 plus minutes and all situations against men. Maybe even try to start Matt Murray (not that multiple cup winner Matt Murray) in a couple of games and see if there’s something to him. Basically, prepare your team for many years of contending to come to the best of your abilities.

One step back and two steps forward principle.

Oh yeah and bottom line here: Hire a coach who can actually develop these players and help them fulfill their true potential. There are now a handful of pretty good options out there, be it Marc Savard or Bruce Cassidy to top my list. I’ll definitely look into some of them in the near future.

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Until next time!

JK's Takes

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