The Dallas Stars haven't been incredibly busy in this off-season, only making smaller moves to compliment the team they already have. The biggest changes going into the 2011 season will be in net and those changes had their wheels in motion when it was still the regular season, so its hard to even comment about that as an off-season move. Nevertheless, in the overall scheme of things, the Stars kept a lot of the same faces and seem to be confident with the skill level that they have in place, they just have to be concerned about the number of injuries their team has faced in the last 12 months. If the Stars can stay healthy, they might not be a bad team, but starting from the netminder out, this might be worth some real concern.
Kari Lehtonen will be the biggest concern, but also can be the greatest asset the team has going into 2011. He is considered to be a very solid goalie when he is healthy and we all know how much that happens nowadays. The reports suggest that he is healthy going into this season and the Stars will need to lean on him a bit to make sure that is the case. They do have some reasonable talent behind him, but as most teams do, they want to have a true number one that can handle the minutes.
With no Mike Modano, Jere Lehtinen or Marty Turco this year, the Stars will definitely have a different feel to them. Will it be for the better though?
| Forwards | Defense | Goalies |
| Brad Richards | Stephane Robidas | Andrew Raycroft |
| Loui Eriksson | Trevor Daley | Kari Lehtonen |
| Mike Ribeiro | Karlis Skrastins | |
| Brendan Morrow | Mark Fistric | |
| Jamie Benn | Niklas Grossman | |
| Steve Ott | Jeff Woywitka | |
| Toby Petersen | ||
| Tom Wandell | ||
| Brandon Segal | ||
| Fabian Brunnstrom | ||
| Brian Sutherby | ||
| Krys Barch | ||
| Adam Burish | ||
| Sean Backman | Jordie Benn | Richard Bachman |
| Jonathan Cheechoo | Severin Blindenbacher | Tyler Beskorowany |
| Aaron Gagnon | Jace Coyle | Jack Campbell |
| Luke Gazdic | Maxime Fortunus | Brent Krahn |
| Scott Glennie | Phillip Larsen | |
| Tristan King | Brad Lukowich | |
| Scott McCulloch | Trevor Ludwig | |
| Travis Morin | Guillaume Monast | |
| Michael Neal | Matt Stephenson | |
| Greg Rallo | ||
| Ondrej Roman | ||
| Raymond Sawada | ||
| Colton Sceviour | ||
| Matt Tassone | ||
| Mattieu Tousignant | ||
| Tomas Vincour | ||
| Francis Wathier |
The Dallas Stars are going to be another one of those budget teams that will have to hover around the salary cap floor, mostly because of their ownership issues that they have been dealing with recently. The Summer roster above has 13 forwards, six defense and two goalies, plus they are still covering half of the cap hit for Sean Avery, who is playing in the Big Apple with the Rangers. This all comes in at an annual cap projection of $46.9 million, which ranks in the bottom-third of the league at the moment. My expectations of change from here and into the season are awfully low.
I'm still not sure how serious I want to take the Stars going into the hockey pool draft. I like Brad Richards, Jamie Benn and maybe Steve Ott late, but that's about it. I really think there are a lot of gambles on this team, some of which can pay off well, but can really detonate in front of your face during the year. If I am without a goalie late on in the draft, I would consider Kari Lehtonen, but I think I would have to be really confident in my forwards before that happens. Maybe I need some pre-season games to calm my nerves over them.
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