Dallas Stars Hire New GM

The Dallas Stars today have announced the hiring of a new General Manager. After many rumored attempts of luring this General Manager out of retirement throughout the hockey community, Stars owner R. Thomas Gaglardi was finally able to be the one to secure the services of none other than Dan Bacon. Bacon comes in as a highly respected hockey mind and is expected to have full control over all decisions pertaining to the hockey and business end of the Stars organization.

Gaglardi had this comment to make, "Bacon is a guy with the reputation of arrogance with a my way or the highway type of leadership. While some lesser men than myself might find that as a negative, we here in Dallas need that mentality to keep up with Jerry Jones and the Cowboys. I was looking for a leader that could turn around the mess that has accompanied this franchise since we sat atop the EHE just a few short seasons ago and I know I have found that guy."

The mess that Gagladi refers to is one that the media has been all over this offseason. The Stars currently sit as the team with the least amount of available finances in the entire EHE at under 1 million dollars and also currently sit with the highest number against the salary cap at a whopping $79+ million. I don't think I need to remind anyone reading this that the cap compliance number for this upcoming season is just a hair over $71 million. With multiple bad contracts just signed this offseason which are the main culprit for putting this organization in the situation, and league rules prohibiting those players from being traded until the quarter mark of the season, Bacon will need to get creative to get this team back under the cap while maintaining assets. If this team had the Toronto media following it instead of the Dallas media, Gaglardi and the former GM might have been forced to move out of the country for their own safety.

Bacon was kind enough to give a brief statement when asked what his plans are for the near future. "We have strides to make to first become compliant with league rules. We will take those necessary steps, even though we anticipate it hurting us in the immediate future, but I promise all our great fans, we will be the Stars of the EHE again in a very short time frame. I would like my fellow GMs to know that we will be open for business as soon as the league imposed trade moratorium for me is lifted in about a week's time. However, over the next few days we would like to solicit as many trade offers as possible from the great GMs of the EHE. There will not be initial negotiations from us, per league direction, but we would like to see what kind of interest is generated by our players so we can hit the ground running when the time is right. I am privileged to be a part of the fantastic league and this highly regarded group of GMs and can't wait to make my mark within this league."

Bacon then began to walk off stage, but before he was out of sight, he removed his suit jacket revealing a not so subtle message for one particular team of the EHE: