DALLAS — Monday night was not ideal for the Dallas Stars. Reasons for that began even before their game against the Boston Bruins, a 3-2 loss, started. The Stars were forced to play with 11 forwards and seven defensemen due to injuries sidelining Matt Duchene and Radek Faksa.
“I’m not a big 11 and seven guy, for a couple of reasons,” Stars head coach Pete DeBoer said at morning skate. “It’s tough to get in a rhythm back there and some guys are sitting for a while. The other piece is, if you’re going to go 11 and seven, you have to have certain players up front that can play 25 minutes, like a (Connor) McDavid. Effortless skater, that type of game.”
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The answer, from a personnel and minutes distribution point of view, Monday came in the form of Joel Hanley, the seventh defenseman making his season debut and playing 8:20, and Jason Robertson, setting a career high by playing 26:17 (the only time Robertson played more in the NHL was 29:34 in the double-overtime loss to the Minnesota Wild in Game 1 of the first round this past spring).
According to DeBoer, Duchene “is pretty good but it was going to be day to day, and we’re day to day … I don’t think it’s long term.” On Faksa, DeBoer said that the Stars forward is “getting closer” and he anticipates Faksa “being a conversation for the next game,” which is in Columbus on Thursday. Faksa has missed the last four games with an upper-body injury but he did participate in morning skate Monday in a regular practice jersey. It was the first time Faksa got back on the ice since his injury occurred.
With the Stars being short a forward, there was a lot of chatter about what options the Stars could turn to. Let’s examine.
The most popular inquiry was regarding the Stars calling up one of their promising young forwards, Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque, both of whom are having fantastic starts to their AHL season in Cedar Park. That was never an option for the Stars because they simply do not have the cap space.
According to Cap Friendly, the Stars have $531,981 in cap space. Bourque’s cap hit is $894,167 and Stankoven’s is $814,167. The Stars don’t have a way of creating cap space. For starters, placing a player on injured reserve does not alleviate the team from his cap hit, it only opens up his roster spot. The Stars don’t have an issue with roster spots so that’s irrelevant. All that means is placing Faksa on injured reserve retroactive to last week or Duchene to a few weeks ago doesn’t open up any options.
The goal is good with 27.6 seconds left! pic.twitter.com/aqfqisi9Mr
— Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) November 7, 2023
The only way for the Stars to gain cap space is to place a player on long-term injured reserve, which would take that player out of the equation for 10 games and 24 days. As mentioned above, neither Faksa nor Duchene appears to be sidelined for any extended period of time, so that is not an option.
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Let’s say, hypothetically, that one of Faksa or Duchene were to miss extended time. The Stars could then place the player in question on LTIR and his cap hit, $3.25 million for Faksa and $3 million for Duchene, would become available for the Stars to use. Interestingly, in that case, the Stars could then add Stankoven and Bourque to the roster together because their combined cap hit would come in under the figure opened up by Faksa or Duchene. The Stars are already operating with one extra roster spot available, something they can’t do anything with because of the money factor. Whenever the injured player was available again, the team would need to return the prospects back to the AHL and reinstate the player to the NHL roster.
As it stands, because the Stars are not in LTIR, they are accruing cap space daily. If circumstances don’t change drastically and they do continue to accrue cap space on a daily basis, they will have enough space to call up one player at Stankoven and Bourque’s cap hit roughly soon after the Christmas break. At that point, they could call up Stankoven or Bourque even if there is no injury and they’re just looking for a roster upgrade, similar to how the Stars were able to bring Thomas Harley into the fold late last year. Remember, Harley’s delay was caused because of Scott Wedgewood’s injury, which required the extra slot to go to a third goaltender in Matt Murray.
In summary, there are a lot of moving factors and considerations but unless there is a pretty significant roster transaction made — such as going into LTIR — Stankoven or Bourque are not logistical possibilities before the end of December.
Unless …
The Stars get hit with a flurry of injuries that aren’t long-term enough to use LTIR but do limit players available to play in the short term. This is a case of a team’s situation being in a “roster emergency.” What does that mean? In simple terms, it means the Stars don’t have 18 skaters available or two goaltenders. In that case, a team must play one game below those thresholds before they are allowed to call somebody up from the minors on an emergency basis.
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For a recent example of this, the Edmonton Oilers played Saturday’s 5-2 loss to the Nashville Predators with 17 skaters, as forwards Mattias Janmark and Connor Brown were both out with injuries. After that game, the Oilers were eligible for the roster emergency, which they used by calling up James Hamblin. As soon as Janmark or Brown are ready to return, the Oilers must send Hamblin back to the minors.
For a moment Monday, that sort of dire situation looked like it could potentially be on the table when Roope Hintz took a puck and was shaken up. However, he didn’t miss a shift and was back, so disaster was averted for the Stars. But had Hintz joined Faksa and Duchene on the shelf, and none of the three could play in Columbus, the Stars would have to play with 17 skaters against the Blue Jackets. Then, if none of the three NHL forwards were ready to return to the lineup, the Stars could look to call up a forward from the minors on a temporary basis.
But …
The Stars would only be able to call up Stankoven, not Bourque. Although the emergency recall does not count against the salary cap while they’re on the NHL roster, the player must have a salary-cap hit of no more than the league minimum plus $100,000. This season, that number is at $875,000. If you recall, Bourque’s cap hit is slightly over that at $894,167, while Stankoven comes in just under at $814,167. Matej Blumel, cap hit of $925,000, would also be ineligible for an emergency recall but the rest of the forwards would be eligible.
To clear up a potential small area of confusion, the threshold is 18 healthy skaters, regardless of position. So, even though the Stars were forced to play “short” Monday up front with 11 forwards, they had an extra defenseman, so they had 18 healthy skaters. Therefore, Monday’s game against the Bruins did not qualify as the Stars playing the one game short that’s required before an emergency call-up.
Obviously, the other avenue for making a roster change would be the trade market.
In summary, the Stars are extremely tight against the cap, so there aren’t many options. They were in a similar situation last year, but it didn’t come up much because the Stars managed to stay relatively healthy, at least until the homestretch of the season. As for those who would like to see Stankoven or Bourque in the NHL, barring some unfortunate events to the NHL roster, that clamoring will have to wait for a little over a month and a half before it’s a possibility.
(Photo of Logan Stankoven: Jerome Miron / USA Today)
