Stars sign Matt Duchene to four-year contract extension

A veteran scorer has played his way to a nice pay bump.

On Thursday, Dallas Stars general manager Jim Nill announced that the team has signed forward Matt Duchene to a four-year contract extension. The deal carries an AAV of $4.5 million through the 2028-29 season.

According to PuckPedia, Duchene has a full no-move clause for the first two years, while he has a modified no-trade clause in the final two seasons. The terms of the contract subject Duchene to submit a list of five teams to which he can be traded to.

“We are thrilled to have Matt back with our organization,” Nill said in a release. “As our team’s leading scorer last season, he helped to solidify our forward group while also providing invaluable leadership off the ice and in the community. The fit with Matt and our team has been seamless from the start, and we’re looking forward to continuing to pursue our shared goal of bringing a championship to Dallas.”

Duchene first arrived in Dallas in the summer of 2023, not long after his contract was bought out by the Nashville Predators. He joined the team on a one-year contract worth $3 million, a deal that he also received this past season. What the Stars have seen has been a return to form for a player who had shown glimpses of being a star, but never found the consistency during some tumultuous years with the Predators and Ottawa Senators.

Yet, in Texas, the Haliburton, Ontario native has found a groove. After scoring 25 goals and 40 assists for 65 points during the 2023-24 season, he posted one of the best seasons in his career at age 34. In 82 games this past year, Duchene notched 30 goals and 52 assists for 82 points, good for second on the team in total points behind the newly-acquired Mikko Rantanen.

It marked just the second in Duchene’s career that he hit the 80-point mark, as well as the third time he’s posted 30 goals in a season.

In the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Duchene scored a goal and five assists for six points, as the Stars made it back to the Western Conference Final, only to lose to the Edmonton Oilers for the second year in a row.

In 1,138 NHL appearances, Duchene has scored 371 goals and 520 assists for 891 points. He’s also registered 37 points in 69 postseason games.