On July 1, Jim Nill walked out to address the media after having signed four defensemen earlier in the day.
The number itself wasn’t the surprise. The team had been unable to re-sign Chris Tanev, who took a lot of years and a lot fewer taxes to go to Toronto. But the Stars also had to replace the stalwart Joel Hanley, who had been claimed off waivers by Calgary following the Tanev trade, while Jani Hakanpää had departed Dallas in free agency after being unable to play down the stretch due to a nagging injury.
The most shocking move before free agency happened just a few days prior on June 27, when Ryan Suter was bought out of the final year of his contract. That meant that half of the Stars’ defensive corps from the 2023 playoff run was gone in addition to their top-shelf rental from the 2024 playoff run in Tanev.
So the Stars had a choice to make: find the next-best Tanev, or develop a new plan altogether. They chose the latter.
Nill walked out on July 1 in a bland, gray windbreaker that belied the frantic nature of the free-agent frenzy that had just concluded. The Stars GM then started by talking about the newly signed Ilya Lyubushkin, describing him as a “physical presence defenseman,” someone who could fill the role that Hakanpää had.
Nill followed that up by talking about Matt Dumba, alluding to his tough reputation from the 2023 playoff series against Minnesota while also describing him as “a little bit more of a skilled player” than Lyubushkin. He then mentioned Brendan Smith, and how he has “a physical element to his game.” Smith’s versatility as someone who has played forward and both sides of the defense also came into play.
None of those players is going to replace Tanev, but then again, none of them is expected to. As team writer Mike Heika mentioned just the other day, Dumba and Lyubushkin in particular carry a reputation for being “nasty,” which you might alternatively define by saying they are eager to deal the big hit and fight when needed. That’s not quite the same thing as the great combination of puck movement, skating, and physicality that Tanev brought, but there’s a reason every team wanted him: those sorts of right-handed defensemen are worth their weight in gold. In lieu of the complete package in one top-tier player, the Stars prioritized a theme rather than a solo.
You might also define “nasty” as simply dealing out hits, period. And Dumba does that. His 202 hits last season would’ve led the Stars by a healthy margin, as Hakanpää was the only Star to even crack 100 hits. Dumba’s 88 penalty minutes (including a couple of fights) also would have paced the team, which gets even more impressive when you realize it came in a season in which he had his lowest average ice time in his last eight years.. Love him or loathe him, Dumba makes life tough when he has the chance.
Lyubushkin’s 176 hits last year would also have been near the top of the Stars’ leaderboard, with his 57 penalty minutes easily eclipsing that of Miro Heiskanen, who led the Stars’ blueline with a paltry 36 PIM. That’s not an indictment on Heiskanen per se, as the Stars were the least-penalized team in the NHL. But there’s no denying it’s going to be much less fun to dump the puck in against the Stars’ blueline knowing Dumba or Lyubushkin is lining you up for a big hit the minute you touch it.
Even Smith cracked 100 hits last year, and he also had three fights to bolster his healthy total of 61 penalty minutes. Those three fights, by the way, were more than the Stars’ defense had combined last season. Do you remember Joel Hanley fighting Brad Marchand last year, or at least wrestling and falling down? That was one of the defense’s two bouts during the season, and it was probably still prettier than the other one.
Of course, we in 2024 know that hits and fights and penalty minutes aren’t the be-all and end-all of a team’s defensive aptitude. More than ever, defensemen know what plays to make, how to read the forecheck properly, and how to defuse it. Finishing a big check in the corner can feel satisfying, but if the forward is able to get the puck moving along the boards in the direction he wants, he’ll probably take the hit every time to do it. These days, a defenseman has a specific idea of how to beat the forecheck, how to buy time for teammates to set up in the defensive zone, or when it’s best to eat it along the boards. The idea of losing the race to the puck but wearing down players with constant hits over the course of a game is less common than ever these days. The puck, it turns out, matters quite a bit.
And that was the Stars’ primary approach in past years, when the defense lined up with the likes of Hanley, Suter, Nils Lundkvist, and Colin Miller. These players all have many abilities, but they didn’t inspire fear the way Dumba and Lyubushkin have done, or the way the 234-pound Lian Bichsel already does.
(Lundkvist was the fourth defenseman signed by Nill on July 1, but we’re not required to talk about him until Peter DeBoer’s coaching staff starts trusting him, so we’ll consider him the new seventh defenseman until proven otherwise.)
Even Harley and Esa Lindell, with all of their size and strength, don’t tend to hit, take penalties, or fight much. That obviously doesn’t hurt their overall game, as evidenced by their recent contract extensions. But it does mean that, for a less physical defenseman in the heat of the moment against a team such as Vegas, you may be limited in your ability to deliver punishment for dumping the puck in behind your defense and outmuscling the opponent along the boards. Hitting doesn’t have to be your main weapon, but if you don’t have it to begin with, that can become a liability.
Even if someone like Smith doesn’t play every night, the Stars will still have two regular options who can stop a play in Dumba and Lyubushkin: players who can eliminate a forechecker along the wall, who can make a player pay when he tries to slip toward the net. Teams generally plan to target one side or the other for their offensive zone entries and dump-ins, as even the most ferocious defenseman is going to struggle if his partner can’t hold the blueline or cross the ice to collect a dump-in from time to time. Time will tell, though, how effective those new defenders can be in the Stars’ system; we’re not far removed from a physical player like Hakanpää struggling against the speed of Seattle back in the 2023 playoff run when playing alongside Lindell.
This is one reason so many players tend to look like defensive geniuses when playing with Heiskanen. He defends the blueline effectively with his stick, but he also gets to dump-ins fast enough to make a good play, meaning that the pairing ends up doing much less defending overall. That’s a luxury that everyone from Suter to Harley to even Roman Polák have benefited from when playing with Heiskanen.
The pairings will be crucial in forming a defensive identity, and I believe Nill’s mention of Dumba’s skill was no accident. Dumba formerly played top-pairing minutes in Minnesota, and while the organization will continue to say it’s comfortable with Heiskanen playing on his right side with Harley, Nill has always valued balanced pairings. True to form, DeBoer started the first day of training camp with defensive pairings that reflected that belief:
The defense is going to be more unpleasant for everyone involved. The unit will take a few more penalties, get into a few more scrums after the whistle, and generally just cause more problems for any unfortunate souls who happen to be in the neighborhood. Nill is betting that most of those problems will be for the opponents to deal with. If he’s right, and particularly if Bichsel shows he’s ready for the NHL later in the year, you could see a remade defense that looks far more intimidating than any we’ve seen in recent years:
Harley-Heiskanen
Lindell-Dumba
Bichsel-Lyubushkin
It’s far too early to speculate about the playoff roster, but given that the Stars played with effectively five defensemen for two playoff rounds in the spring due to a lack of trust in Lundkvist, that could be a lineup that any coach would happily put on the ice against Vegas, Colorado, or even Edmonton. Because they’re “nasty,” yes, but also because they just might be pretty darn good.
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