It\u2019s not very often that a team that has the type of playoff success that Dallas has changes coaches.\u00a0 But a week after the Stars were eliminated, Nill elected to make a change, dismissing head coach Peter DeBoer after three seasons with the team, all of them ending with losses in the Western Conference Final.\u00a0 His handling of goaltender Jake Oettinger<\/a><\/strong> during and after the final game of the Edmonton series is believed to be a contributing factor in the decision, as was the fact that DeBoer was entering the final year of his contract with the team.\u00a0 Clearly, an extension wasn\u2019t in the offing and rather than have a coach in his \u2018lame duck\u2019 year, they opted for a change.<\/p>\n The timing of the move was somewhat curious as, prior to the move, all the other vacancies around the league had been filled.\u00a0 Had Nill made the decision even a few days earlier, he could have had a chance to speak to some of the new bench bosses that were hired elsewhere.<\/p>\n Accordingly, the early thought was that Nill might just promote from within, meaning one of assistants Alain Nasreddine (who briefly ran the bench in New Jersey) or Misha Donskov, along with AHL head coach Neil Graham, would be the speculative favorites.\u00a0 In recent days, Oilers assistant Glen Gulutzan (who Nill fired as Dallas\u2019 head coach in 2013) has become a speculative candidate for the opening as well.<\/p>\n Beyond those options, the usual options that came up in other coaching searches include veterans Bruce Boudreau, John Tortorella, Jay Woodcroft, and Gerard Gallant with first time options like Mitch Love, Jay Leach, and Manny Malhotra (who is still coaching in the Calder Cup Finals) potentially garnering consideration as the process goes on.\u00a0 Additionally, they\u2019ll also have a lead assistant role to fill after Boston hired Steve Spott as an assistant coach with them on Friday.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t something they necessarily have to have done by the draft but when free agency comes around, potential targets will want to know who they\u2019re playing for.\u00a0 With that in mind, a decision will need to be made relatively soon.<\/p>\n Clear Out A Defender (Or Two)<\/strong><\/p>\n Nill has been quite busy in recent days on the transactions front, re-signing Matt Duchene<\/a><\/strong> to a four-year contract and then dealing away Mason Marchment<\/a><\/strong> to Seattle to balance the money from that move.\u00a0 They\u2019ve since re-signed defenseman Nils Lundkvist<\/a><\/strong> and winger Mavrik Bourque<\/a><\/strong> to low-cost one-year deals.\u00a0 In doing so, they\u2019ve dropped their cap space to $2.75MM per PuckPedia<\/a> which sounds okay until you consider that they probably need to sign four forwards and possibly a defenseman with that money.\u00a0 With a minimum salary of $775K, something has to give.<\/p>\n While there has been some speculation about moving out a core player (one in particular we\u2019ll get to shortly), it feels like the Stars would prefer to chip away at creating that space with multiple moves, the Marchment one being the first.\u00a0 To do that, the chipping away will need to come from the back end.<\/p>\n Veteran blueliner Mathew Dumba<\/a><\/strong> is the most logical candidate to remove from the roster.\u00a0 The first season of his two-year, $7.5MM contract did not go well at all with the 30-year-old struggling to the point where he didn\u2019t play at all in the playoffs.\u00a0 That\u2019s $3.75MM that could be used to round out the roster, perhaps to try to re-sign captain Jamie Benn<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n But how to clear that contract remains to be seen.\u00a0 A buyout would lower the cap hit to $1.417MM next season but add $1.167MM to the books for 2026-27.\u00a0 Meanwhile, waiving and assigning him to the minors would only clear $1.15MM, leaving $2.6MM counting against the cap.\u00a0 In a perfect world, trading him without retention would be Plan A but it\u2019s likely they\u2019ll have to incentivize a team to take him and down several draft picks, that\u2019s not the most appealing option either.\u00a0 But they\u2019ll have to pick the best bad option and move forward from there.<\/p>\n There has also been some speculation about Ilya Lyubushkin<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 He has two years left on his contract signed last summer with a $3.25MM cap charge.\u00a0 He played more regularly during the regular season but wasn\u2019t an every-game player in the playoffs for them.\u00a0 In a perfect world, they\u2019d keep him on the third pairing but if additional funds need to be freed up, he could be a candidate to move as well.\u00a0 If nothing else, given the lack of depth of the market, Dallas should be able to move him without attaching assets unlike Dumba.<\/p>\n Whether it\u2019s Dumba, Lyubushkin, or both, some more quick activity on the roster front will be needed from Nill before too long.<\/p>\n Make A Decision On Robertson<\/strong><\/p>\n Knowing that a significant amount of cap space needed to be opened up (and that was before re-signing Duchene), there was plenty of speculation surrounding winger Jason Robertson<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 With a $7.75MM price tag, clearing that much money would allow them to not move as many players out to keep cap-compliant.\u00a0 Of course, doing so would also open up a significant hole on their top line.\u00a0 There are three options the Stars have here as he enters the final year of his contract which we\u2019ll go through here.<\/p>\n Extend:<\/strong> There\u2019s a case to make that if the Stars don\u2019t move Robertson, they should focus in on trying to sign him to a long-term extension this summer, eliminating any speculation about a trade coming into play as the season goes on.\u00a0 His qualifying offer jumps to $9.3MM and he\u2019ll be arbitration-eligible while being one year away from UFA eligibility so it\u2019s going to take a big offer to get something done now.\u00a0 Knowing the $104MM projection, simply matching his current cap hit percentage would make the offer $9.766MM which still feels on the low side given how productive he has been in the first three years of the deal.\u00a0 At this point, the price tag feels likely to start at the $11MM mark, especially if it\u2019s an early deal getting done.<\/p>\n Hold:<\/strong> This one is rather self-explanatory.\u00a0 If they want to keep their options open, they can enter the season without an extension and if they struggle or find themselves too far apart on contract talks, then the idea of a trade could be entertained closer to the trade deadline or they could kick the can on extension discussions to this time next summer.\u00a0 It\u2019s probably not their preferred option but it could easily happen.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/USATSI_20411521-200x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Trade:<\/strong> While this seemed to be more of an option earlier this month, it appears that Dallas has told teams that they don\u2019t want to go this route.\u00a0 But depending on how successful they are at clearing out the defensemen, it can\u2019t be ruled out either.\u00a0 At a price tag that will be cheaper than most of the top wingers on the open market (for one year, at least), there should be strong interest in a player who has reached at least 80 points in three straight years and has scored more than 40 goals in two of the last four seasons.\u00a0 To keep the cap charge down, the bulk of the return could be futures-based but there would be room for them to pick up an entry-level forward who is already established, similar to Carolina\u2019s addition of Logan Stankoven<\/a><\/strong> from Dallas in the Rantanen trade.<\/p>\n