Upgrading defense core is the Dallas Stars’ biggest offseason mission

The Dallas Stars have launched themselves into a nice window of Stanley Cup contention thanks to the development of some of their elite players this season and their run to the Western Conference Final to show that they belong in the list of contenders. However, there’s still some weaknesses to solve, most notably on their blueline beyond Miro Heiskanen.

Frank Seravalli and Colby Cohen had Saad Yousuf on Daily Faceoff Live to talk about the Stars blueline, and what their options to improve it are, both externally and internally.

Saad Yousuf: I think when you look at their priorities, it has to be on the blueline. They were exposed in the Conference Finals by the Vegas Golden Knights, and Vegas is probably one of the deepest defensive cores in the league. But still, I kept saying this during the Conference Finals, if you look at Dallas and Vegas, if you were doing a draft of just the defensemen in that round, you take Heiskanen number one, and then I think the next six guys would be Golden Knights defensemen.

So, Dallas really has a void there, the problem is that they don’t have a whole lot of cap space to do anything with it. Their biggest hope right now is internal jumps from their first round pick in 2019 Thomas Harley, a guy who they traded a first round pick for in Nils Lundkvist, but if they’re able to upgrade in any way, it has to be the defensive blueline, because that’s where their weakness was really shown in the playoffs.

Colby Cohen: I totally agree with you, and I’m glad that’s where you went with it because you kind of led me right into my question for you, and it’s about Lundkvist. What I want to know with him is, what is his true ceiling?

This is a guy who asked for a trade very quickly out of New York because he didn’t like that he would have had to go to the American Hockey League. Last year was his first full season as an NHLer, he played 60 games, and he put up some points, it was okay, nothing out of this world, but not terrible either.

So you’re watching him every single night, do you see a guy who can really become a top four defenseman in the NHL and hold down a blueline?

Saad Yousuf: For sure, I do think of his ceiling being as a top four. I don’t think that his ceiling is top pairing, but that’s a tough ask anyway, but I can easily see him being a staple on the second pairing on the right side, especially in Dallas, where aside from John Klingberg, they’ve really struggled to have stable sense of right-handed defensemen. So for Lundkvist, he needs to be good by his own standards, but by Dallas Stars’ standards, right-handed defensemen is not a high bar to clear exactly.

So I think that plays into it, and I think also when you look at the trajectory that Harley’s on, and Pete DeBoer talked about this at the end of the season, that offensive defensemen have a tougher time adjusting to the NHL game because they have to learn how to play defense, and I think Lundkvist is learning that right now. If you look at the jump that Harley made from last year to this year, he doesn’t even look like the same player, and I think that’s what they’re hoping with Lundkvist as well.

You can watch the full episode here…