Reviewing the Dallas Stars’ 2025 Offseason

Nill said something really important there that I really appreciate: “Glen has worked with some of the best players in the world.” Clearly, he is specifically talking about Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. There’s something valuable in having worked with players as special as those two. Not only did he learn how to manage superstar talent, but it is inevitable that he learned a lot about the game itself from watching how they approach their craft day after day.

If you’re looking for something tangible that Gulutzan brings besides his experience, which isn’t nothing, it’s his work with the Oilers’ power play. Since taking it over in 2018-19, the Oilers have the best unit in the league with a 26.8% success rate in the regular season and 29.1% in the playoffs. Since the 2022-23 season, under DeBoer and Steve Spott, the Stars are seventh in the regular season, 23.7%, and fifth in the postseason at 28%. That might not seem like that big of a difference, but the Stars have seen a dip in power-play success as the DeBoer years have gone on, and after finishing 2024 with a 15.3% success rate, it took an otherworldly three-month stretch to bump that number up to 22%.

Now, I’m not convinced that the Stars changed the roster enough to beat the likes of the Florida Panthers (more on that later), but Nill and Gulutzan both do, and that’s enough for me. DeBoer was incredibly successful in Dallas, but it’s more than clear that it is time for a new voice and direction, and Gulutzan brings both.

“My family and I are excited to come back to Texas where I started my NHL coaching journey more than a decade ago,” Gulutzan said. “Jim (Nill) and his staff have built a roster that is one of the most talented and deepest in the entire league. The right pieces are in place to compete for the Stanley Cup on a yearly basis. I’m ready to get to Dallas and start preparation for the next season.”

The Right Players Stayed, for the Most Part

While players have come in, out, and stayed over the last month, there hasn’t been a lot of change when it comes to the character of the group. The Stars are a very skilled team that relies on production and special teams more than it relies on defense and physicality. The team is good defensively, but the consistency of the offense is more relied upon than that of the defense.

The moves that grabbed the headlines were the re-signing of Matt Duchene and the trading of Mason Marchment, which I went over earlier in the offseason. Check out this link for my full thoughts, but to quickly sum up: The Duchene signing brings back offensive stability but doesn’t change the dependability on skill, and Marchment’s departure was necessary for cap reasons but also removes some of the grit the Stars did have, which wasn’t a ton to begin with.

The Stars also brought back captain Jamie Benn, solid two-way forward Colin Blackwell, and 23-year-old forward Mavrik Bourque. Benn will probably bounce between the third and fourth line, but is a beloved leader both on and off the ice, who can still produce and throw around his body when needed. Blackwell is a gritty bottom-six forward who has made his living in the crease and the corners, both in the offensive and defensive end. Bourque is an incredibly skilled forward whose potential is through the roof, but he has a lot of work to do when it comes to his own end.

Overall, these were good players to bring back. With Duchene, you’re bringing back a 40-goal scorer. In Blackwell, you’re bringing back a player who has an edge to his game that is missing from a lot of the roster. In Benn, it’s more about his leadership than his production at this point in his career, but he’s still a big part of Dallas’ identity. Bourque is a bit of a different story as his best years are certainly ahead of him. His offensive upside is off the charts, which makes him a potentially valuable player if he stays, but also just as valuable at the trade deadline if the Stars want to bring in a heavy hitter.

Unfortunate Casualties of Business

Marchment, Mikael Granlund, and Evgenii Dadonov are three players of note who will be lacing up with a different team in October, and the Stars will feel the absence of all three. Rather than list their names, you could say that 64 goals just left the building, and there’s no one coming in to replace them. Marchment and Granlund each scored 22 goals, while Dadonov had 20 of his own.

There is a case to be made that Mikko Rantanen, who played 20 games for the Stars after the trade deadline and scores 30-plus goals every season, makes up for some of that. However, that’s just one player who could have a hot or cold stretch at any time. There’s comfort in knowing three players will hit 60 goals combined one way or another, and those goals are now spread across North America.

The hardest pill to swallow is probably Granlund leaving for California at $7 million per season. There’s a chemistry that he and his fellow Finns (Roope Hintz and Rantanen) found that will certainly be hard to duplicate, and it’s going to force Gulutzan and the coaching staff to approach their strategy differently. No doubt the Stars are going to have to win 3-2 and 2-1 a lot more than 5-2 and 6-4.

I will add that they lost Cody Ceci to free agency and traded away Matt Dumba, but with the youth and depth that the Stars have on defense, it doesn’t really raise my eyebrow.

Stars Bring Back Faksa

After being traded to the St. Louis Blues last summer, Radek Faksa, the Stars’ first-round draft pick in 2012, is back in Dallas. On the one hand, the Stars have a bunch of bottom-six centers who are either playing on the wing or at center. On the other hand, Faksa represents a physicality and toughness that the Stars need, and certainly needed in the playoffs this past spring. Along with being hard to play against, Faksa is excellent in the faceoff circle and on the penalty kill, both of which will be valuable both in the regular season and in the postseason.

Bringing back Faksa doesn’t guarantee a Stanley Cup or anything, but the Stars have been a great regular season team that has not been hard enough to play against in the later rounds of the playoffs. The hope is, Faksa can help address that issue.

So, Are the Dallas Stars Better?

After all of this, that is the real question. Are the Stars better? Of course, the answer is that time will tell, but to be more specific, I don’t think so, and that’s okay. The Stars don’t have to be better from October to the middle of April. The Florida Panthers don’t care where they finish in the standings. Neither do the Oilers nor the Vegas Golden Knights, and the Stars shouldn’t either. Year after year, the Stars are at or near the top of their division and a top-five team in the NHL. Year after year, their special teams are top five, and their home record is flawless.

Yet, year after year, they cannot get past the conference final, and in the past two years, the Oilers, who have issues of their own heading into the fall. The main thing that teams like the Panthers and Oilers have in common is the ability to work on their playoff game as the regular season goes on, and that’s what Gulutzan and the Stars need to apply to their game in 2025-26.

I do think a new voice behind the bench is going to do wonders, and it feels like they have their guy. I also think that this past playoff defeat left a worse taste in their mouths than the two previous ones. After Game 1 against the Oilers, there was no feeling that the Stars were going to win that series. This feels like a clean slate, even though most of the roster has returned.

I still don’t think they changed the identity as much as they maybe should have, but that’s easy for me to say. This is still a championship-caliber team, with a phenomenal roster. Yet, as we always say, time will tell.