Chris Tanev’s time in Dallas seems to be over

June 30, 2024

The Dallas Stars made moves this week that appear to signal a desire to free up salary cap space to re-sign their favorite unrestricted free agents: defenseman Chris Tanev and forward Matt Duchene. They bought out the final year of 39-year-old defenseman Ryan Suter’s contract, freeing up about $1.3 million in salary cap space this season to give themselves some financial breathing room.

However, it seems that this was not enough to bring Tanev back into the team for the upcoming season.

The Stars traded his rights to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday on the second day of the NHL Draft, a few days before free agency begins on July 1. They received a 2026 7th-round draft pick and an AHL forward, Max Ellis, in exchange for the rights to negotiate with the impending free agent.

If one believes the statements of various media representatives, it seems that the contract term was the sticking point for Tanev.

Acquiring Tanev’s rights from Dallas gives Toronto the ability to sign a maximum 8-year deal. Sounds crazy, but a bigger team helps attract players from lower-tax markets and lowers the AAV. Tanev will likely sign for 5-8 years.

— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) June 29, 2024

I would speculate that the Stars didn’t want to end up in the same situation going forward as they did with the Suter contract. Suter was signed for four years at age 36, and they didn’t even make it to the end before his effectiveness noticeably dropped over the course of an 81-game season and a long postseason. When you consider that the huge max contracts Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin signed years ago don’t look so good as time goes on (while both are effective, they aren’t the $9 million forwards they were when those contracts were signed), you can see why the reluctance to stick around too long for someone who is in the final stages of his career doesn’t fit into their long-term plans.

There are also plenty of raises in the pipeline in the coming years to keep the new core of stars together. Jason Robertson, Wyatt Johnston, Logan Stankoven, Thomas Harley, Jake Oettinger – all will be looking at raises in the coming seasons, and if they perform like they have recently, that will take up a lot of salary cap space, even if the salary cap is raised in the future. You don’t want to get tied down with a potential albatross contract in all of these negotiations, especially if it could come at the expense of young, homegrown talent.

Still, many questions remain about who exactly Dallas is targeting to bolster the defense next season. Right now, they have two players under contract on defense: Miro Heiskanen and Esa Lindell (who, oddly enough, is entering the final year of his $5.8 million contract). Thomas Harley is a restricted free agent and will be signed later this summer after free agency, a timeline most teams adhere to in their RFA negotiations.

The status of fellow RFA defenseman Nils Lundkvist is also unclear here. Stars coach Pete DeBoer seemed to lose confidence in the young defenseman over the course of last season, so these moves either indicate that he will be forced to rely on him every day going forward, or that he will be locked into a contract to give the Stars additional salary cap space to improve on the back end via a free agent signing or a trade.

One also has to wonder if Lian Bichsel, the first-round draft pick two summers ago who started the year in the AHL and then returned to Europe to play in the SEL, is ready for the NHL after a surprisingly long playoff run this spring. These moves could open the door for him to join the Dallas roster this summer right out of training camp, even without any major additions via free agents or trades.

As it stands, this is the weird part of the offseason where the bigger picture of these moves isn’t yet clear. What is clear is that Dallas seems willing to be proactive in making changes to the defense at any opportunity they get.

You’ll just have to practice Stars general manager Jim Nill’s favorite word – patience – to see how it all comes together over the next week.