A (Less) Measured Take: Why letting Dallas' UFAs go could be a good thing

My hot take of the summer.

“Less measured” does not mean…not measured.

This is a dumb distinction to make but I just want to be clear from the outset: I’m not interested in writing hot takes. A hot take is perfect for whatever algorithm has been further cheapened by AI, and this is not a place for that. So to be clear, I believe in this take with every fiber of my armchair being. Dallas doesn’t need to bring back any of their UFAs. I don’t believe they’re what Dallas needs, I don’t believe they represent the priority in these Stars, and I suspect they’re about to hit the kind of declines we normally see for aging players instead of the Pavelskis and Duchenes that Dallas has been getting.

I mention that because I’m intentionally ignoring what these moves represent. After all, you don’t just sign NHL players. You bring them into a culture. They help forge chemistry, and they forward your reputation to the hockey world at large with every meeting, practice, and service teams provide them with. We often hear about free agents going someplace because of what they heard from their buddy, and their buddy’s buddy. There are also no guarantees in the business of hockey. Maybe the player high on your list doesn’t want to come to Dallas. Maybe they do, but at a price you can’t afford. It’s easy to play armchair GM when you don’t have to navigate the interpersonal relationships that must be managed with the same reverence as the bottom line of adding value to your roster.

In other words, these musing are my own, with the caveat being that this take lives in a perfect world where optics are not important, and where not having a Plan B is fine. Hence, “less measured.” With that out the way…

A digression: why losing a player doesn’t mean losing their points

When Joe Pavelski retired, I heard this all the time. “But who’s gonna replace his 67 points?” We’re hearing this about Duchene too. “Who’s gonna replace his 82 points?” This year, Dallas scored 20 less goals without Pavelski. “What did I tell you?!” Sure. But Dallas only dropped one rank, going from 3rd in goals-for to 4th. So even without Pavelski’s 67 points, they remained a top five goal-scoring team.

This is why I like to stress the importance of understanding fancy stats. Just because you are losing a player doesn’t mean you are losing all of their production. Even “average” players can give you above average production with a bigger role or more minutes. See Warren Foegele in L.A., Vladislav Namestnikov in Winnipeg, Willian Karlsson in Vegas, or half of Florida’s roster over the last four years. This is why I think ‘fit’ is so much more important than simply what a player has done. While the hard data on understanding offensive flow and offensive playstyles — and therefore defining chemistry beyond a broadcast buzzword — is lacking in the hockey datasphere, it’s not absent either.

Beyond that, Dallas scored 29 more goals than the Florida Panthers. So what difference does it really make? This is what worries me when a team panics over replacing minutes, and replacing points. Are you replacing a player’s production with a player who might not replace those points but who will fill a void in terms of possession and performance…or are you simply bringing in a player with a lot of points in the past? The latter is easy. The former is hard¹.

Why Dallas doesn’t need their UFA forwards

The idea behind this is simple: Dallas’ priorities should be finding a top four right-shot defender next to either Esa Lindell or Thomas Harley, and getting a right wing for Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston. The rest the Stars can fill at the trade deadline. These are the biggest areas of improvement.

Here’s all of Dallas’ UFAs in terms of sG, which I’ve done my best to explain here.

There’s a lot of points between these players, but what about projectable performance?

That to me, is the thing here. All of these forwards project to be bottom sixers in terms of shift-to-shift impact, and territory. But let’s assume the Stars really want to bring Duchene and Granlund back. In order to do that, they ship Matt Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin off. Even on friendlier deals, Duchene is getting somewhere between $4-$7M for four years.

Granlund is getting somewhere between $3M-$6M on four years.

Even on the low end — let’s say $9 million for both for the next four years — are these two players really what puts Dallas over the edge if it prevents them from improving elsewhere? And even if it doesn’t, and Dallas is able to find a top four defender for relatively cheap: is a moderately-improved lineup involving forwards on the decline enough to beat Edmonton?

I know everyone had the hots for Granlund-Hintz-Rantanen. I myself loved the idea. But they were 45 percent in expected goal share in the playoffs through 147 minutes. That’s not exactly a small sample size. This is less about criticizing Granlund and more about figuring out what Dallas needs in order to beat Edmonton and Florida. How much do the above players move the needle in proportion to cap the Stars will need to leverage in more critical areas?

The not-stated suggestion here is that a bunch of Texas Stars should come up and just fill roles. That’s not what I’m suggesting either.

Why Dallas doesn’t need their UFA defenders

This one goes without saying. Not a single UFA defender including two defenders who Dallas would be wise to trade — Matt Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin — profiles at or above a replacement level defender. On the contrary: they have negative value in terms of scheduled, shift-to-shift impact.

This is where the discourse loses me, completely. What does a new coach have to do with a defective blueline? How can Dallas get the most out of its forwards if the majority of the Stars’ defenders can’t maximize their breakout ability? The trade for Mikko Rantanen was great. But losing Chris Tanev makes it feel like a wash, since the Stars not only failed to replace Tanev, but actively got worse. Here are some generic stats to drive this point home (numbers adjusted for minutes at even-strength):

• Shots against: 24th (14th in the postseason)

• Shot attempts against: 17th (11th in the postseason)

• Expected goals against: 22nd (13th in the postseason)

• Goals against: 13th (10th in the postseason)

The absence of Heiskanen for so long in both seasons undoubtedly affects these numbers. But the priority for this team was made explicit in 2023. Outside of the 2024 trade deadline that brought in Tanev, the problem remains.

The armchair vision

You’ve heard that old expression. ‘A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.’ I would say that this is true of the trade deadline, but not in the offseason. Certainly no one would describe Dumba and Lyubushkin as ‘perfect plan’ options.

So that’s the crux of this argument: a serious move to improve the blueline begins and ends with making it priority #1. If the cost to that focus means losing a few good UFAs, then so be it. If the cost to that focus means losing them all — then, so be it. However, this argument is not contingent upon leaving the forwards alone. A more mobile blueline means maximizing the elite forwards that Dallas does have. The base of Johnston, Robertson, Hintz, and Rantanen is still a killer foundation for a top six. Reilly Smith, Connor Brown, Andrei Kuzmenko, Joel Armia, Brad Marchand — except for Marchand, there are still a few interesting names that can be bought for relatively cheap to fill out the middle six; names that fit into the lineup.

But I get it. This is the real world. Where bringing back Benn and Granlund leaves fewer questions about the forward lineup, and potentially trading Jason Robertson for a blueline move (which we’ll discuss later this week) is a lot easier, even if it raises questions about whether Dallas can get better in any move involving Robertson. Whatever the case, it’s hard for me to look at Dallas’ UFAs and say “they need to bring this guy back.”

That’s what I don’t get. That line above applied to one player over the last several years, and one player alone: Tanev². If that’s the case, then why doesn’t Dallas need a Tanev replacement? They do.

That’s why everything else is secondary.

1. John Matisz’ piece from The Score on what teams can learn from Florida is must-read. Especially the part about pro scouting departments in the NHL.

2. This doesn’t mean Dallas should have signed him to the contract he received in Toronto; just that I think everyone agreed his continued presence was needed.