Stars trying to free up cap space to sign Miro Heiskanen next offseason

The Dallas Stars have been working to improve this offseason in hopes of getting back to the Stanley Cup Finals once again. However, the team has also had another focus this offseason: free up enough cap room for the 2021-22 offseason when the entry-level contract of defenseman Miro Heiskanen is up. The 21-year-old will be a restricted free agent, and the Stars would like to lock him up long-term.

Heiskanen has been a key reason for the dominant defense that the Stars have used to push their way to the top. The 21-year-old might have posted only 35 points in 68 games last season, but his defense is what makes him special. So it is critical to get the blueliner signed to a long-term deal. To free up cap room, the Stars absorbed the full amount of their cap overages ($3.05M) for next year — as opposed to splitting it between the next two years, saving them $1.52M in cap room for 2021-22 — chose not to buy out any players to keep extra cap penalties away from that year.

Matthew DeFranks of the Dallas Morning News writes that assuming the plan is to sign Heiskanen to a long-term deal, it likely will cost them somewhere between $8M-$9M if you compare his deal to that of Ottawa Senators defenseman Thomas Chabot, who signed his long-term deal a year ago with an $8M AAV. Now with newer contracts such as Vegas’ Alex Pietrangelo and Nashville’s Roman Josi, the market seems set for Heiskanen when the two sides can begin negotiating at the start of the 2020-21 season.

Here is more from around the league...

• With the Nashville Predators having moved out quite a few veteran players during the offseason including Mikael Granlund, Kyle Turris, Nick Bonino and Craig Smith, they look likely to be forced to insert a number of young players into their lineup to fill it out. While The Athletic’s Adam Vingan writes the team is still working on trying to bring in Mike Hoffman or Anthony Duclair to fill one of those roles, the Predators will be putting quite a bit on the shoulders of Eeli Tolvanen this year. The 2017 first-rounder is a likely candidate to take on a top-six role with after sitting in the AHL for the past two seasons. Tolvanen appeared in only seven NHL games during that time, but after a 21-goal campaign with Milwaukee last season, he is the most likely candidate to step into the lineup. Allthough, it isn’t out of the question that 2019 first-rounder Philip Tomasino could also make the team with a strong camp.
• While he hasn’t been loaned out to a European team, newly signed Blackhawk Lucas Wallmark is training overseas with Bjorkloven of the Allsvenskan, which plays in his hometown of Umea in Sweden, according to a report in HockeyNews.se (translation required). Wallmark will practice and train with the team until the NHL season starts. With the Blackhawks signing, the 25-year-old joined his third team within the past year. Carolina dealt him to the Panthers at the deadline as part of the Vincent Trocheck trade, and then he was not issued a qualifying offer, making him an unrestricted free agent. He opted to sign with the Blackhawks.