In the ninth of a 32 part series leading up to the start of the 2025-26 National Hockey League regular season, we will look at the key off-season transactions made by all NHL organizations with an overall grade. Here are the Dallas Stars.
It is not that much of a surprise that the Stars did not make many off-season changes to their player roster. They only made one significant move to their current lineup, made two trades that they hope will help them down the road, and made hockey headlines by making a significant head coaching change. Let’s take a look at what the reigning Western Conference Finalists decided to do.
Radek Faksa
Faksa of Vitkov, Czech Republic signed a three-year contract worth $6 million on Canada Day. He is returning to the Stars after playing last season with the St. Louis Blues. This upcoming season, Faksa is expected to center a fourth line that includes Oskar Back of Karlstad, Sweden, and Colin Blackwell of North Andover, Massachusetts.
In 2024-25 with the Blues, Faksa had five goals and 10 assists for 15 points. He was a -2 with 30 penalty minutes, one game-winning goal, 68 shots on goal, 432 faceoff wins, 50 blocked shots, 115 hits, 13 takeaways, and 32 giveaways. Faksa’s game-winning goal came on January 14 in a 2-1 Blues win over the Calgary Flames. Faksa scored from Tyler Tucker of Thunder Bay, Ontario and Alexey Toropchenko of Moscow, Russia with eight minutes and 49 seconds left in the third period to break a 1-1 deadlock.
In Faksa’s Stars career, he has 89 goals and 111 assists for 200 points. He is a -11 with 356 penalty minutes, Â 12 power-play points, 13 shorthanded points, 14 game-winning goals, one hat trick, 882 shots on goal, 4148 faceoff wins, 534 blocked shots, 967 hits, 290 takeaways, and 234 giveaways. The three goal game came in a 3-0 Stars win over the Vegas Golden Knights on November 28, 2017.
Trades
The Stars said goodbye in the offseason to defenseman Mathew Dumba and left winger Mason Marchment in separate trades with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Seattle Kraken. The Stars also traded a second round pick to Pittsburgh, and received defenseman Vladislav Kolyachonok, a third round pick and a fourth round pick.
New Coach
The Stars are bringing back Glen Gulutzan as their head coach after Peter DeBoer clearly did not get along with Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger. Gulutzan has coached the Stars in the past, but recently spent the last seven seasons as an assistant coach for the Edmonton Oilers.
Projected Grade
The Stars made a huge upgrade when it came to their head coach. Gulutzan is a stronger communicator and has been to the Stanley Cup Finals the last two years. Dallas also deserves praise for getting rid of Dumba, who only had one goal last season, and Marchment, who had undisciplined play. Faksa knows the Stars well, so there will not be much of a learning curve there. My grade for the Stars in the offseason is an A.
