Stars Will Utilitize Tyler Seguin Cap Space to Add To Roster
Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period was on TSN Radio in Montreal and was asked what the Dallas Stars, their play, their struggles offensively, and if they will add at the deadline.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
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Host: “Dave, lastly, I want to ask you about a team that always has high expectations coming into the season, but for me, I find underwhelming this season and come playoff time, and that’s the Dallas Stars. They’re the first wild card team. They have 43 points on the season. But what is in your mind has seemingly not clicked for this team?
I mean, you look at the roster, they don’t have a guy that’s a point a game, right? And that’s a little bit surprising to me. I thought that would be kind of a shoe in for them coming into the season. And Jake Oettinger I’m always waiting season after season for him to be the clear cut Vezina guy that everyone was expecting him to be, and he still hasn’t made that step. What is up with the team?”
Dave Pagnotta: “Yeah, I think it’s certainly a combination of Oettinger’s play, which has been fairly pedestrian, quite frankly, and just nobody has taken the reigns yet to lead this team offensively, and a big chunk of that has been not having Tyler Seguin in the lineup.
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He was the guy. He had 20 points in 19 games before he got knocked down with another hip issue, which has taken him out until probably around the Conference Final time frame, if they get there, but we haven’t seen the offensive explosion we’ve seen in the past from Jason Robertson.
Matt Duchene is doing well, but just under a point a game. Other than the other night when Robertson had a much better game. Wyatt Johnston had a much better game. Roope Hintz, even though he’s got 15 goals on the season, he had a bit of a better performance overall based on what he’s capable of his last couple of games.
They’re going to need some of their guys to step up a little bit more in the offensive category for this team to start making a run. You knew that Colorado was eventually going to wake up and get back into the swing of things here, and you thought we cited that Minnesota would dip a little bit.
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There’re still going to be a playoff-bound team, but I think you know there’s an opportunity still for Dallas. That they’ve got two games in hand on both of those clubs, but with Colorado maintaining their pace, and Minnesota doing decently. I think there’s still an opportunity for Dallas to kind of climb into the top three, probably at this point, at the number three position, depending on how Minnesota does.
But they need their guys, their offensive weapons, to be exactly that. So I’m expecting this team does make noise. And keep in mind, they’re going to be a team to watch going toward the trade deadline.
They’ve got cap space now. Plus they can use the $9.85 million of Tyler Seguin because he’s going to be done until halfway through the playoffs at the earliest. They can use that LTIR space, when they use up the current cap space, to add to this roster.
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And Jim Nill is exploring. He’s looking at bringing in a top-four defenseman. He’s looking at bringing in a top-six offensive weapon. And ownership is given the green light to go spend the money. So they’re going to add at some point this season.
But even beyond that, they’re going to need guys like Robertson, like even the young kid in (Logan) Stankoven to kind of step up a little bit, along with Wyatt Johnston to kind of lead the charge offensively. And at that point, you also hope that Oettinger during the second half of the season, elevates his performance as well.”
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