Have the Dallas Stars done enough to earn a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals this season?

The Dallas Stars enter the 2025–26 NHL season with one goal in mind- to earn a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals. For the last three years, the team has gotten through to the third round of the playoffs, and for three straight years, they have been beaten, once by the Vegas Golden Knights and twice by the Edmonton Oilers.

This offseason, the team made a number of changes, including the return of former head coach Glen Gulutzan. However, have they done enough to be the best team in the Western Conference?

Recapping the Dallas Star’s offseason

This has been an eventful offseason, but the biggest move they made was done before the end of last season in adding Mikko Rantanen. The superstar forward was nearly a point-per-game player in the regular season before adding 22 points in 18 games in the playoffs, fourth in points-per-game among skaters who played at least 10 playoff games. For reference, Harley finished second on the team in points in the playoffs with 14.

The Stars are markedly better with Rantanen, and adding him to an already deep team last season was shrewd business.

This summer, the Stars re-signed Matt Duchene, Jamie Benn, Colin Blackwell, and Mavrik Bourque. Benn and Duchene bring veteran presence and stability, while Bourque is poised for a big season this year. However, the re-signing of Blackwell adds a ton of grit, and teams like the Oilers and Panthers have shown just how important that is to win in the postseason.

The other excellent add was bringing back former Stars first-round pick Radek Faksa. While he hasn’t developed into an elite forward as once expected, he has developed into a handy two-way centre, who can play penalty kill minutes and matchup against top lines. His grit also is a much needed addition to this lineup.

The challenge for the Stars isn’t who they added but who they lost. Betwen trading away Mason Marchment and losing Evgenii Dadonov and Mikael Granlund, this team lost a ton of secondary scoring, grit, and chemistry. Granlund in particular formed excellent chemistry with Rantanen and Roope Hintz, and this will be tough to replicate.

The team also lost Cody Ceci and Matt Dumba, but those feel like addition by subtraction.

The other major addition was new head coach Glen Gulutzan. While this move was laughed at by those who remember his famous stick throwing incident in Calgary, the Stars may be onto something with him.

Since leaving Dallas, Gulutzan has been both a head coach and an very well-respected assistant, especially in Edmonton. He was able to distill down the Star’s plays, and develop effective strategies to shut them down in the playoffs. In an interview this summer, he noted specifically the ways in which he was able to shutdown the Stars’ top players and limit chances against.

The Oilers will be one of the teams that they will need to beat if they want a chance at the Cup, and having a coach who understands their systems and what it took to build a team that could get to the finals two years in a row is going to be critical. Teams typically see a bump when they bring on a new coach for the first 20 games, but whether the Stars see this and are able to maintain this long-term is going to be the big question.

Are the Dallas Stars the best team in the Pacific Division?

The Western Conference arms race has been very real this summer. The Vegas Golden Knights snagged the biggest prize in Mitch Marner, which elevates them even more as a major player in the West.

While the Oilers didn’t add much beyond Andrew Mangiapane, they still have two of the best players in the league in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Suspect goaltending is still an area they need to work on, but it’s hard to ever count them out.

A perennial first round knockout, it seems as though the Los Angeles Kings actually got worse. The additions of Corey Perry, Brian Dumolin, Joel Armia, and of course Ceci raise eyebrows as to whether the team is actually any better this season.

The Colorado Avalanche made a number of minor moves this summer to complement their already strong core. They continue to be a threat in the Central.

Minnesota as well added a few smaller pieces, with Nico Sturm being the one big signing, but did not make the same level of splash in free agency this year.

While there is some possibility that the Calgary Flames, Vancouver Canucks, Seattle Kraken, St. Louis Blues, or other team in the West could go on a Cinderella-like run, the reality is that the teams that are consistently good will be more likely to be the Stars’ competition.

Have the Dallas Stars done enough this summer?

The Stars go into the season on paper slightly less offensively strong than last season but deeper and more poised than before. They likely won’t score as many goals as they did last season, but they are a team that will win more games by one-goal. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many goals you score but how many games you win.

Unlike the Edmonton Oilers, who are putting their young stars into the top-six, the Stars have the ability to shelter Bourque and Lian Bischel as they develop this season. If either develops into the next Wyatt Johnston or Miro Heiskanen, fantastic, but if they just take another step forward to be strong secondary pieces, still good.

With just pennies remaining in salary cap space, how they react this season will be key. The team could use with one more right-shot blueliner, someone like Rasmus Andersson out of Calgary would be optimal, but it would require money to be moved out on top of losing one of their top prospects or draft picks. This is a very tough price to pay. If a deal can be made midseason with retained salary and just the right amount going the other way, this would be huge for the Stars.

With just weeks until opening night, it feels like this is one of the best iterations of the Stars in a few years, and if everything goes well, this could be the years the Stars make the jump past the Conference Finals. Time will tell.