Stars have some big decisions to make this summer with veterans

The Dallas Stars are looking ahead to the 2025-26 NHL season, after falling short of the Western Conference Finals against the Edmonton Oilers for the second consecutive year. 

While they have made ample progress in recent seasons, this offseason will bring some tough decisions, as Jamie Benn, Matt Duchene, and Mikael Granlund all require new contracts. 

Given PuckPedia has the Stars with less than $5 million in cap space, how could general manager Jim Nill approach the negotiations with their veterans?

On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli dive into what the offseason could mean for the Stars. 

Yaremchuk: It was locker room clean-out day down in Dallas, and there were a lot of guys, Jamie Benn, Matt Duchene, talking about how bad they want to be in Dallas. Mikael Granlund is also still on your free agent board, and he’s a UFA, after coming over from the San Jose Sharks.

Those three and [the Stars only have] $5 million in cap space. How many of them do you see returning to Dallas?

Seravalli: It’s gonna be hard to chart a path to see any of them, really. Duchene alone could eat up all of that cap space, is what you’re talking about. After an 82-point season, how do you turn around and say, ‘hey, here’s three and a half million again.’ You just can’t do it. He’s probably going to have to either move on, or you’ll have to move other guys out to make it work.

Yaremchuk: He’s obviously the one of the three that I’d be pushing the hardest to bring back, but the AFP projection is that he’s a $7 million guy. If he can get $21 million somewhere, as much as he might love Dallas, and talk about how he really wants the security for his family, it’s tough. But, maybe that leads to Jamie Benn being the guy who comes back, because he’s probably the cheapest of the three.

Seravalli: There’s a real path for Benn to come back, and certainly not based on AAV. There was a fascinating column in the Dallas Morning News yesterday by Tim Cowlishaw, discussing why he shouldn’t return as captain and how they need to make some changes. 

I think everyone thinks there’s going to be some kind of change. Jason Robertson’s name was floating out there yesterday, and there are still rumblings this morning that Dallas could be considering a coaching change. So a lot is happening in Big D after the Oilers knocked them out in the Western Conference Final for the second year in a row.

You can catch the rest of the Stars discussion and the full episode here…