Nils Lundkvist going on LTIR: What does it mean for the Stars?

The hits just keep coming for the Dallas Stars this season. They’ve lost Tyler Seguin to LTIR, Mason Marchment for over a month, Matt Dumba missed a month, Miro Heiskanen this week to a knee injury, and now Nils Lundkvist is having season ending shoulder surgery. Nils Lundkvist going on LTIR: What does it mean for the Stars?

The Dallas Stars announced that Nils Lundkvist is going on LTIR to get season ending shoulder surgery. We talked to Head Coach Pete DeBoer the other day at practice and he said that Nils could be back at any time. Crazy how almost 48 hours can change the course of his season.

Lundkvist had been having what was his best career year. Sure, the point production wasn’t there in high volume, but he was getting fairly consistent minutes. Watching him this year from the press box, he was showing a ton of growth, and seemingly was getting closer to shoring up that last spot in the defensive pairings.

It sucks when any player has season ending surgery, and I think this was Nils’ last chance with the Stars. He signed a one year prove it deal, and unfortunately it was cut short.

With Nils Lundkvist going on LTIR: what does it mean for the Stars? Well, buddy, trade season is officially opened.

Having lost Miro Heiskanen for what at least seems until April, and now Nils is gone for the season. It appears that Jim Nill will be picking up the phone and working a trade sooner rather than later.

The Stars sent down Kyle Capobianco this morning as well, so it should be a carousel of sixth and seventh defenseman until a trade is made if I had to guess.

Over the last week it has been reported by multiple sources that General Manager Jim Nill is primarily looking at players under short term contracts. Either players that will be UFA’s at the end of this season or under contract through the 2025-2026 season.

I’m curious if that thinking has changed with the NHL salary cap going up nearly $25 million over the course of the next three seasons. Next season will have a $7.5 million jump in cap, but I’d assume that most of that will be taken up by Wyatt Johnston’s bridge deal, Jamie Benn’s new contract, and hopefully bringing back Matt Duchene who has the best contract in hockey.

The Stars have been on a tear since Christmas break with one of the best records in all of hockey over that span. Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz, and Wyatt Johnston have all been scoring at an elite rate since then (Robertson had the second most points in the NHL in the month of January). So maybe the offensive scorer isn’t what Nill will be after over the next month.

Names have been floated out there for Stars targets, but if I had to guess we may be getting a trade before the Four Nations Tournament break, and that could make a lot of Stars fans happy. The Stars will have over $10 million in extra cap room due to Seguin and Lundkvist going on LTIR. We’ll see what Jim Nill is cooking over the next month. He’s won GM of the year the last two seasons for a reason. Let Jim Nill cook.

We’ll talk all about defenseman trade targets on Clean Sheet of Ice: A Texas Hockey podcast on the Apollo Media podcast network this week so stay tuned for that.

With Nils Lundkvist going on LTIR: What does it mean for the Stars?