Before this past season, Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill won the Jim Gregory Award three consecutive years in a row as the NHL’s best GM.

That resume would suggest it isn't wise to question Nill, but the Stars’ off-season has led to the team being worse off than the group that fell to the Minnesota Wild in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Stars are still highly likely to be a playoff team in 2026-27, but their goal has always been on winning a championship. Nill made an important move in signing one crucial component, but the Stars ultimately didn’t improve.

Let’s explore Dallas’ changes and find out why the Stars got this sub-par placement in our rankings.

Arrivals:

That's right. There hasn’t been a single addition of note by Nill and the Stars this summer.

It can be argued that Nill truly believes in the team he constructed this past season, and there’s something admirable about that. However, there’s a reason most teams make significant changes every off-season.

Teams react to issues they encountered in the previous year, and move ahead with at least a slightly-tweaked lineup to give themselves a different look for opposing scouts and coaches to deal with. That simply hasn’t happened in Dallas this summer.

Dallas also re-signed captain Jamie Benn to a one-year, $850,000 contract. Benn is now 37-years-old, and his offensive totals have decreased every season for the past three years. He’s not going to save the day for the Stars, who go into the 2026-27 season without any shiny new toys to work into the system. 

Departures:

Mavrik Bourque, C; Alex Petrovic, D; Michael Bunting, LW; Ilya Lyubushkin, D; Adam Erne, LW; Nathan Bastian, RW

The Stars finished 10th among 16 playoff teams in 2026 with an average goals-for of 2.50. However, Dallas’ bigger post-season issue was its defense, which finished 14th with a goals-against average of 3.83.

The only teams worse in that department were the Edmonton Oilers (4.33) who exited the playoffs in the opening round just like the Stars. The Cup-winning Carolina Hurricanes had the best defense in the playoffs at 2.05 goals-against per-game, and the Canes had the third-best offense at 3.47 goals-for per-game. 

Unfortunately, the players who did depart this summer make the Stars substantially worse than they were last season.

Nill got a second and third-round draft pick in exchange for Bourque, but a Central Division rival in the Predators got better at Dallas’ expense.

They have to be banking on internal improvement from Dallas’ youngsters in hopes they challenge the Colorado Avalanche for first place in the Central. If they don't, the Stars may have an even tougher go of it in next spring’s playoffs.

The Bottom Line: 

After the changes that have occurred, the Stars look more vulnerable than they’ve been in recent years. Regular-season and early-playoff success has made the Stars’ key players battle-tested when games matter most, but they haven’t been able to get over that final hump.

Is it possible the Stars get some good luck with little injuries, lean on their accomplished veteran core, and finally put all the puzzle pieces together for a long-awaited championship run in 2026-27? Sure, but the Central is stacked, and only improving next season. Dallas could find the road to a Cup considerably more difficult next year. 

If things don’t go right for the Stars in ‘26-27, there could be massive changes made by this time next summer.

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