Stars Off-Season Fan Forum

Dallas – With EHE free agency coming to an end, the Dallas Stars are prepared to begin the longarduous journey back to the top of the league. Entering his second season full season as the GM of the Stars, Bob McGugan held court yesterday with a small group of reporters and fans to discuss free agency, off season transactions and the upcoming season.

ON TRADES

For the second time in a few months, McGugan made a deal involving Dylan Larkin. His last deal raised the furor of a good number of league GMs, most complaining about the return for Brad Marchand (who’s development should make that trade look more even now) was lopsided. This time, McGugan dealt Larkin and defensive face off specialist center Marcus Kruger to the Boston Bruins for exciting young center Sean Monahan, and the Bruin’s 2018 3rd round pick. The GM acknowledged that Bruin’s GM Rob Prach, a familiar trade partner for Dallas, approached him looking to move Monahan for Larkin, trying to resolve some positional needs that the Bruins had. Being in a rebuild and with the team’s scouts agreeing with McGugan that Monahan might have more upside, the deal was made.

“Even a rebuilding team needs some star power,” McGugan said. “We were happy to sit on Dylan and watch him develop, but this move not only potentially speeds up or rebuild, but gives us a player that we really like, at least on par with what Dylan brought to the table.”

More recently, The Dallas Stars and the Vancouver Canucks hooked up on a deal that saw Stars veteran winger Nikolai Kulemin move north, while the Canucks sent to Dallas young rookie d-man Mirco Mueller and their 2018 4th round pick. Mueller has struggled to reach his potential so far, but is still seen as a defenceman that could hold down a bottom pairing role in the future, while not expected to provide much in the way of points but will hopefully develop into a solid front of net presence.

“In a rebuild, we’re trying to move assets that we don’t see being with us when we challenge for a playoff spot for assets that we hope might.”

ON FREE AGENCY

The Dallas Stars entered free agency having lots of holes at both the NHL and AHL level. The club was also well below the salary floor and had to sign some names to get above it. They were able to sign a good number of the names they targeted, but did lose out on all of the marquee names that they were hoping on maybe signing one of. The club signed the following: Brooks Laich, Brandon Tanev, Sam Gagner, Noel Acciari, Boo Nieves, Mark MacMillan, Nick Moutrey, Drew Stafford, Dominik Simon, Jonny Brodzinski. These signings allowed the Stars to go above the floor and meet the player requirements to ice the NHL and AHL clubs.

“I’m excited with a lot of the young players we were able to sign. Tanev, Acciari, Nieves, MacMillan, Simon and Brodzinski are all still young enough that they have the chance to develop into solid AHL or even NHL players. We had the room to add these young guys so are willing to take a chance on them. Brooks Laich, Drew Stafford, and Sam Gagner will all be playing with the big club this season as we transition from our Cup winning years to the rebuilding years and on yet again to a chase for the Cup. They will be an integral part of our lineup for the foreseeable future and will be a big part of our continued promise to ice as competitive a club as we can during these retooling years."

ON THE UPCOMING SEASON

The Dallas Stars and their fans have been spoiled since the beginning of the EHE, experiencing back to back Stanley Cup wins. The club was built out of the gate to compete immediately, the roster filled with aging veterans on 2-4 year deals. The team did what it was built to do – win Cups. In the EHE environment however, it isn’t necessarily realistic to expect a continued run indefinitely with the inability to resign upcoming UFAs. For this reason, GM McGugan decided to beat the rush of teams that will have UFAs stemming for the inaugural draft and begin the Dallas rebuild a year earlier than maybe necessary.

“I felt that the time to start moving those upcoming UFAs was last season. My thinking was that waiting until this season or next would have resulted in competing with a bunch of other teams that all had expiring contracts they would be trying to move as well. We maximized the return on those players in the best way I knew how. Now we can begin to move forward with this season being the first step. With newly acquired Sean Monahan in place at center, Roman Josi and Kevin Shattenkirk anchoring the defence and Carey Price in net – all for years to come, I feel we have the cornerstones in place that will be necessary to successfully move forward. Between that and the glut of promising youngsters we have, I’m excited for this season and those to come."