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Breaking down the markets for Stars defensemen Miro Heiskanen, Jamie Oleksiak and John Klingberg

Dallas has expressed public interest in retaining all three, but — as always — it will depend on the numbers.

This summer will be a big one for the Stars’ blue line, with a trio of key contributors able to sign contract extensions.

Miro Heiskanen is a restricted free agent for the first time in his career, Jamie Oleksiak is an unrestricted free agent, and John Klingberg is eligible to sign an extension now that he’s one season away from becoming a UFA.

The Stars have said they’d like to retain all three players given the current makeup of the Dallas top four on defense, but — as always — it will depend on the numbers. The combination of big contracts (Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn), plus a flat salary cap and upcoming extensions to Jason Robertson, Denis Gurianov and Jake Oettinger make cap management all the more important to Dallas.

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Each of the three players falls into a different market despite his uniform status as a top-four defenseman in the NHL.

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Heiskanen is the do-it-all young superstar looking for his first contract after his entry-level deal. Oleksiak is the late-20s second-pairing defenseman who logs big 5-on-5 minutes, decent short-handed minutes and zero power-play time. Klingberg is the offensive spark plug who — the opposite of Oleksiak — gets a ton of power-play time and none on the penalty kill.

Special teams time on ice is a bellwether for how a coach and organization view a player. If there’s a lot of penalty killing, he fills a defensive role. Same with power-play time.

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Essentially, the Stars want to know what players with similar roles and similar production got paid, and how they can get signatures on comparable deals. We’ve covered this topic here before, but what could contracts for Heiskanen, Oleksiak and Klingberg look like?

All stats are from Natural Stat Trick, and from the season prior to signing their contract.

Miro Heiskanen

The first order of business for Heiskanen and the Stars is to figure out the length. Dallas general manager Jim Nill previously said it would make sense for both sides to work toward a bridge deal, and it does.

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The Stars don’t have the cap space to sign Heiskanen to a long-term contract without hamstringing their efforts to improve in free agency this summer. Heiskanen probably would rather sign a lucrative long-term deal when the salary cap is going up and when the Stars start to shed contracts like Benn’s in a few years.

If Heiskanen and the Stars are to do a bridge contract (one that is four years or less instead of a long-term one that would buy out UFA years), there are a few precedents in the market.

PlayerSigning age5v5 TOI/GP5v5 Pts/60PP TOI/GPPK TOI/GPYearsCap hit
Miro Heiskanen2119:110.742:541:35
Zach Werenski2118:121.002:321:213$5 million
Charlie McAvoy2118:031.291:341:173$4.9 million
Mikhail Sergachev2216:090.901:521:083$4.8 million

Compared withWerenski, McAvoy and Sergachev, Heiskanen produces the least 5-on-5 offense. But he also shoulders the most responsibility, leading all of them in time on ice at 5 on 5, on the power play and on the penalty kill.

Heiskanen also plays against other team’s best forwards and had one of the best postseasons for a defenseman in 2020, putting up 26 points in 27 games as the Stars lost in the Stanley Cup Final.

If a bridge is the way to go, it’s a question of how high Heiskanen is above Werenski and Co — $5.5 million? $6 million? $6.5 million? That’s the big unknown.

Others to watch this summer: The defense-amageddon is finally here.

For the last few years, it’s been understood that this summer’s class of RFA defensemen would set the market for each other, just as the RFA class of forwards in 2019 did. That class had Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Mikko Rantanen, Brayden Point, Kyle Connor, Patrik Laine, Matthew Tkachuk, Brock Boeser, Sebastian Aho and Clayton Keller.)

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PlayerSigning Age5v5 TOI/GP5v5 Pts/60PP TOI/GPPK TOI/GP
Miro Heiskanen2119:110.742:541:35
Cale Makar2118:141.424:090:55
Quinn Hughes2117:411.093:380:08
Rasmus Dahlin2117:230.743:060:06

The quartet of Heiskanen, Makar, Hughes and Dahlin will still impact each other’s negotiations, but it will be interesting to see the length of each deal.

Even after signing a goaltender and re-signing captain Gabriel Landeskog, the Avalanche might have enough room for a long-term contract for Makar that keeps him in Denver for five to eight more years. Buffalo can sign Dahlin to an extended term, but only if he wants to lock himself in with the Sabres for the long haul.

Vancouver, which also has Elias Pettersson to re-sign, seems destined for a bridge deal with Hughes.

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Jamie Oleksiak

When the Stars re-acquired the 6-6 Oleksiak from Pittsburgh in 2019, they could not have scripted the next two years of development any better. He morphed from a rotational healthy scratch to a top-four defenseman, playing alongside Heiskanen for 82.2% of his 5-on-5 minutes.

The Stars picture Oleksiak as an ideal partner for Heiskanen, and held on to him at the trade deadline instead of dumping him for draft picks this summer. Whether or not the massive but offensively aggressive Oleksiak actually is the correct partner for Heiskanen is irrelevant, as long as the Stars believe he is.

While Dallas can re-sign Heiskanen at any time, they are best served waiting on Oleksiak. If he signs before the expansion draft on July 21, the Stars would not be able to protect Oleksiak, Heiskanen, Klingberg and Esa Lindell. Free agency begins July 28.

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For contract comparables, you may have to look no further than Montreal, which employs both Ben Chiarot and Joel Edmundson in its top four.

PlayerSigning Age5v5 TOI/GP5v5 Pts/60PP TOI/GPPK TOI/GPYearsCap hit
Jamie Oleksiak2818:240.810:091:31
Ben Chiarot2816:250.840:021:483$3.5 million
Marco Scandella3015:070.830:041:594$3.275 million
Brenden Dillon2916:430.680:022:094$3.9 million
Joel Edmundson2715:111.040:032:464$3.5 million
Chris Tanev3015:070.810:053:244$4.5 million

These are defensemen who play top-four minutes at 5 on 5, nothing on the power play, and also kill penalties and score at similar rates. Tanev (who undoubtedly benefited from playing alongside Hughes the year before he signed his deal with the Flames) may be the outlier as one of the league’s most-used penalty-killers, but his contract is nonetheless useful.

Oleksiak does eat up a few more minutes at even strength, which adds up across a full season and furthers his market value.

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Others to watch this summer: Oleksiak won’t be in the Alec Martinez class of free-agent defensemen since he doesn’t score enough, but there are still two prime comps and three marginally useful ones.

PlayerSigning age5v5 TOI/GP5v5 Pts/60PP TOI/GPPK TOI/GP
Jamie Oleksiak2818:240.810:091:31
Derek Forbort2917:170.740:102:41
Ryan Murray2716:150.920:041:44
David Savard3017:070.260:081:55
Cody Ceci2715:131.230:042:31
Brandon Montour2717:371.020:311:46

Forbort and Murray each have similar usage to Oleksiak. In terms of raw points, the three players were also fairly close, with Oleksiak and Murray at 14 points and Forbort at 12. Savard is older and doesn’t score but might still earn top-four money, while Ceci and Montour were each more productive.

John Klingberg

Klingberg’s situation is a bit less urgent for both the player and the Stars, given that he’s still under contract for next season, but both sides have acknowledged there’s desire to keep Klingberg in Dallas.

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The thing to consider with Klingberg — other than the market comps, which we’ll get to in a moment — is that he’s been severely underpaid on a team-friendly contract since 2015. His $4.25 million cap hit is consistently one of the league’s best values given the caliber of player he is.

After being underpaid (and welcoming his first child), Klingberg will want to get paid. There’s no fault in that at all, and it’s completely understandable and reasonable for Klingberg to want that for himself and his family. It’s just a matter of how that ticket would fit with Dallas.

Klingberg is often thought of as the Stars’ No. 1 defenseman because of his point production and top-pair status. But Dallas doesn’t use him as such. He doesn’t get those tough matchups (those go to Heiskanen), and he doesn’t kill penalties (unlike partner Esa Lindell). He’s an engine for the team’s 5-on-5 play, and he walks the blue line on the power play as well as anyone in the NHL.

That said, there are not a ton of recent comps for offensive dynamos that play sheltered minutes. In fact, there might just be one: St. Louis’ Torey Krug.

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PlayerSigning age5v5 TOI/GP5v5 Pts/60PP TOI/GPPK TOI/GPYearsCap hit
John Klingberg2918:130.933:100:11
Torey Krug2915:201.033:510:077$6.5 million

If you go back a few more years, other examples arise, but contracts signed in 2016 (Keith Yandle) and 2017 (Kevin Shattenkirk) don’t reflect the current market value of players. It also doesn’t help that Yandle was a healthy scratch for Florida in the playoffs, and the Rangers bought out Shattenkirk.

PlayerSigning age5v5 TOI/GP5v5 Pts/60PP TOI/GPPK TOI/GPYearsCap hit
Keith Yandle2916:270.982:390:037$6.35 million
Kevin Shattenkirk2815:221.093:130:224$6.65 million

Perhaps the $6.5 million AAV is cheaper than you expected for a player like Klingberg.

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It’s also very possible that there’s a team out there that wants to pay Klingberg like a true No. 1 defenseman. That means measuring up to Alex Pietrangelo ($8.8 million), Roman Josi ($9.059 million), Jared Spurgeon ($7.575 million), Oliver Ekman-Larsson ($8.25 million) or John Carlson ($8 million).

More clarity could also come this summer.

Others to watch this summer: Dougie Hamilton will get all the attention as the top defenseman on the market, but Tyson Barrie could be the more apt comparison for Klingberg in terms of usage and production.

Then, there’s next summer’s class, in which Morgan Rielly is the closest player to Klingberg, rather than names like Seth Jones and Darnell Nurse.

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PlayerSigning age5v5 TOI/GP5v5 Pts/GPPP TOI/GPPK TOI/GP
John Klingberg2918:130.933:100:11
Tyson Barrie2817:081.383:370:08
Morgan Rielly2819:051.032:550:26
Dougie Hamilton2717:041.152:591:28
Seth Jones2719:440.812:142:02
Darnell Nurse2720:401.191:252:27

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