The Dallas Stars Trade for Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci

What a whirlwind of a morning. Last night, the Dallas Stars beat the Vancouver Canucks after they traded J.T. Miller an hour before the game. This morning the Dallas Stars placed Tyler Seguin and Nils Lundkvist on LTIR. Two hours later the Dallas Stars trade for Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci from the San Jose Sharks. My head is spinning, let’s get into it.

I had pointed it out on our show, Clean Sheet of Ice: A Texas Hockey Podcast, that the Stars had yet to put Tyler Seguin on LTIR, which I found strange. It all happened this morning, and officially opened up trade season for GM Jim Nill. Once players go on LTIR, their salaries officially don’t count against the cap for the rest of the time they are on it.

We knew before the injuries to Mason Marchment, Miro Heiskanen, and Lundkvist that the Stars would be making a trade with Seguin being out until at least the playoffs. We officially got our answer this morning as to what Jim Nill wanted to do.

Welcome Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci to Dallas! Granlund has been a trade target for Dallas in most people’s minds over the last two months. We mentioned him as a great add for the third or fourth line come playoff time. Much like Max Domi and Evgenii Dadonov have been for the Stars over the last few years.

Granlund should add some offensive juice to this team as he’s already scored 45 points this season (15 G, 30 A). Obviously playing for the Sharks is not the best of situations outside of Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith, but Granlund has performed quite well this season.

Granlund will probably slide in on one of the power play units to help what has been a subpar unit for the majority of the season (yes, they’ve been much better since Christmas break, but they’re still 25th or something in PP%). He’s also another center that can play wing. The Stars love that versatility (Benn, Seguin, Johnston, Hintz, Duchene, Seguin, Bourque, Stankoven, Steel, etc.)

Oh, yeah, Granlund is from Finland so he’ll fit right in the locker room.

As for Cody Ceci, he was a position of major need for the Dallas Stars. He’s a right handed defenseman, six foot two inches, and can slide in on the second or third defensive pairings right now.

Stars fans have grown tired of Matt Dumba over the course of the season. Now Miro Heiskanen is out for an extended period of time, and the team just lost Lundkvist for the season. The Stars NEEDED to go get a defenseman of some sorts, and that’s what they did with this trade.

Ceci probably won’t knock anyone’s socks off this season, but his play should be better than most any other option the Stars have in the AHL right now. Ceci has 15 points (4 G, 11 A) this season, but that’s fairly similar to what the Stars defenseman production is on offense.

I believe Ceci is a good move so the Stars can figure out what they’ve got on the back end with him, Dumba, and Brendan Smith to see which one is going to stick around and be that guy in the playoffs. They’ve got two weeks of games in February and one week of March before the trade deadline, so this could be a stop gap, or the answer for the Stars until Miro comes back.

Overall, this was a move that needed to be done for the Stars. They get two guys that will certainly help this team, and possibly elevate their floor, while not being under contract for next season.

Yes, this did eat up a HUGE chunk of the LTIR money, but the Stars should still have around $2-3 million left by the trade deadline if they wanted to make another move. The best part about this trade is that the Stars kept Logan Stankoven, Mavrik Bourque, and Lian Bischel. They are big parts of this team in the years to come, and parting with one of them for a rental or two would have stung badly.

Giving up a first round and a conditional third round pick hurts a bit because the depth at the AHL level isn’t great right now. But if the Stars want to win the Cup this season, picks don’t really matter.

All in all, this is a win for the Stars because they garner more depth at both offense and defense. The trade elevates the floor if/when everyone returns from injury to an even higher position. I’m happy with this trade, and so should Stars fans.

We’ll discuss the trade in more depth on our podcast later this week, but let’s watch a game or two with the new guys before we get into it.

The Dallas Stars Trade for Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci.