The Dallas Stars Have Leveled Up — Now It’s Time to Win the Cup 🏆
With Mikko Rantanen on board, Dallas has all the pieces to win it all... and no excuses left.
When I crunched the numbers on last Friday’s NHL trade deadline, one team — the Dallas Stars — unsurprisingly stood head and shoulders above the rest in net Goals Above Replacement (GAR) talent added via trades since January 1:
(Yes, I’ve re-posted this chart a few times now. But I didn’t log all those trades to not get my money’s worth out of it! 😂)
First and foremost, the Stars reeled in the biggest fish of the deadline, RW Mikko Rantanen, dealing for him from the Carolina Hurricanes after the ‘Canes failed to sign him to a long-term extension following their own Rantanen deal with the Colorado Avalanche in January. While Rantanen saw his production drop from Colorado (0.50 goals created per game) to Carolina (0.17), he will also be the best player to suit up for three teams in a season by far, and his long track record of excellent production shouldn’t be negated by a 13-game slump in a new city.
(In fact, he’s already off to a great start in Dallas, netting 2 goals and an assist in his first two games with the club.)
Moreover, Dallas also picked up C Mikael Granlund and D Cody Ceci from the Sharks earlier, each of whom has been playing among the Stars’ top two lines. And in the process, they only lost 21-year-old C Logan Stankoven — a talented young player who especially showed flashes in last year’s playoffs, but one who didn’t fully match the team’s window to win a Stanley Cup sooner rather than later.
For a team that had already ranked as the second-most likely champion according to my Elo forecast, such roster upgrades can only mean one thing: the Stars are gunning hard for a title. And as I wrote here, this group is overdue for a Stanley Cup breakthrough after being on the verge of one for years: The 2019-24 Stars had the third-most playoff wins (45) by any NHL team in a six-season span without a ring to show for it.
Dallas’ veteran-laden roster at the start of that run looked very different than it does now. The team had made the playoffs in just two of the previous 10 seasons, dating back to the tail-end of the monumental Mike Modano era, but it had a second-round breakthrough in 2019 with the brilliant goaltending tandem of Ben Bishop and Anton Khudobin, plus just enough offense from Tyler Seguin. The 2020 version was supposed to address the question of firepower by adding Joe Pavelski and Corey Perry — but they disappointed, and the offense was stuck in neutral aside from the breakout of 20-year-old D Miro Heiskanen.
Then the 2020 season was suspended due to COVID-19. When the NHL returned in the bubble environments of Toronto and Edmonton, the Stars were the No. 3 seed in the West — and while handling the No. 6 Flames wasn’t shocking, Dallas turned heads with upset wins over the No. 2 Avalanche and No. 1 Golden Knights en route to a surprising Finals run. (Making matters weirder? It was driven as much by offense as defense.) They even beat the mighty Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 1 of the Finals before the clock struck midnight on Cinderella and the Bolts went on to win the first of back-to-back Cups.
But Stars GM Jim Nill knew that this fluky Finals formula was not sustainable over the long term. So he focused on building around the leadership of LW Jamie Benn and the impressive young core the team had already assembled — Heiskanen, Seguin, wingers Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz, D-men Esa Lindell and Thomas Harley — while transitioning to new goaltending (Jake Oettinger), continuing to nail player development (Wyatt Johnston, Stankoven), and adding veterans who fit the team's evolving identity.
Specifically, Nill targeted skilled forwards with speed and versatility — leading to key additions like a rejuvenated Matt Duchene (acquired from Nashville), Evgenii Dadonov (Montreal) and Mason Marchment (Florida), each of whom could complement the Stars’ newfound ability to generate offense without sacrificing too much defensive responsibility.
Now, after years of refinement, the current Stars have landed on an ideal mix of talent at both ends of the ice. They’re one of only three teams to be at least 0.4 goals per game better than average on offense and defense — joining Winnipeg and Washington — and the first team in Dallas/Minnesota franchise history who could make that claim. A few previous Stars teams were better by overall goal differential, but this year’s version might be the best all-around edition we’ve seen:
Defense isn’t exactly a signature part of Rantanen’s game, but he plays with a decent amount of edge and has been good at driving possession his whole career. This should help add a few new elements to a Stars team that merely ranks mid-pack in zone time, share of shot attempts and physicality.
Of course, Dallas wasn’t the only contender who upgraded at the deadline. Most of the other teams who had playoff odds around 50 percent or better on Friday morning added net GAR talent, with Vancouver (a disappointing team whose odds have been all over the place) and, yes, Carolina standing out as basically the lone exceptions.1 As of Monday morning, the league had 10 teams bunched between 5 percent and 16 percent Cup odds, without a clear favorite to win it all. (The oddsmakers favor Florida, Dallas, Edmonton and Colorado; the Elo ratings favor Dallas, Winnipeg, Florida and Carolina.)
Such a wide-open season — with the salary cap on the verge of big increases, to boot — helps explain why so many teams were letting rip with draft picks and throwing caution to the wind rather than playing it safe, Dallas included.
If everyone turns the aggression up to 11, that might negate the value of any given move, no matter how bold. But as our earlier chart showed, not all deadline bets were created equal in terms of value added. While there’s traditionally a weak predictive relationship between deadline additions and playoff success within any given season, the Stars knew this was their moment.
After years of knocking on the door, Dallas has built a roster that’s talented, balanced and capable of winning it all — and the Cup is right there for the taking. They’ve been through too many what-ifs to let another prime chance slip away. Now, it’s up to them to finally finish the job.
Filed under: NHL
Perhaps Columbus could be included there as well, but they had below 40 percent odds on Deadline Day and really just didn’t do much of anything aside from depth F Luke Kunin.