The Dallas Stars came within two wins of reaching the Stanley Cup Final during the 2025 playoffs, and GM Jim Nill has shown his confidence in the current roster by holding steady during the offseason. What remains to be seen is whether that decision will pay off with the team's first championship since 1999.
The biggest change in Dallas has been behind the bench. Glen Gulutzan was brought in this summer as the replacement for Pete DeBoer, who was fired following the team's Western Conference Final elimination. In his second stint with the Stars, Gulutzan's offensive-minded coaching style seems set to pair nicely with the tools they have up front like Mikko Rantanen and Jason Robertson.
With a fresh face at the helm and much of the core returning for 2025-26, the Stars enter the new season as a favorite to break the Western Conference Final curse and make it to the Stanley Cup Final once again after three straight WCF eliminations.
Minor tweaks and major subtractions to the roster
The only real additions to the roster were depth moves that will strengthen the lower part of the lineup with the signings of Nathan Bastian and Radek Faksa. Bastian and Faksa both fit into the identity that Gulutzan is hoping to create, which he described as "a little more hand-to-hand combat."
Bastian was signed to a one-year deal worth $775,000, joining the Stars after his second tour with the New Jersey Devils, and will serve as a gritty fourth-liner that can lay out hits and win puck battles along the boards. The 27-year-old was in and out of the lineup at times for the Devils, tallying 10 points in 59 games, and the same will likely be true in terms of his role in Dallas.
Meanwhile, Faksa spent the first nine seasons of his NHL career with the Stars before joining the St. Louis Blues this past campaign. He returns to Dallas at age 31, and brings a level of compete to the table that will once again increase the toughness of the roster. Faksa recorded 15 points in 70 games with the Blues, plus 115 hits in 13 minutes of ice time per game.
More notable than the new players being brought on is the amount of skaters that have departed from the Stars. That list includes Cody Ceci, Mikael Granlund, Mason Marchment, Evgenii Dadonov, Magnus Hellberg, Matt Dumba, and Matej Blumel.
In particular, Granlund's departure will be felt the strongest. Though he served as a playoff rental after being acquired at the deadline in March, he posted 21 points in 31 regular season games followed by 10 points in 18 postseason games.
"That was a good team, a real good team but we're going to grow from that. We're starting over fresh now and we did lose a lot of good players, but the guys coming in and the steps the younger guys take, that's what we'll need internally."Stars GM Jim Nill (nhl.com)
Nill hopes that promotions from within can help replace what the Stars have lost during the offseason. There are some highly talented young players poised for larger roles on the team, like 23-year-old Mavrik Bourque who has a shot at landing a spot on the second line. He put up 11 goals and 25 points in 70 games during his rookie season.
There's also 25-year-old defenseman Nils Lundkvist, who could seize the opportunity with Ceci and Dumba no longer on the squad. He moonlighted on the third defensive pairing in 39 NHL games this past campaign before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery. Lundkvist tallied five assists averaging 15 minutes per game.
Of course, the squad is led by the likes of Mikko Rantanen, Matt Duchene, Jason Robertson, Wyatt Johnston, and Roope Hintz. These core forwards were responsible for nearly half of all Dallas goals, combining for 131 of 275 total goals scored.
The Stars' championship hopes lie in the contributions of those key skaters remaining consistent, as well as the depth players and prospects stepping up when necessary. Whether it's enough to get over the Western Conference Final hump will be up in the air come April.