With a 4-year deal, Stars are betting heavily on Ryan Suter’s ability to defy father time

At 6 p.m. Thursday night, Ryan Suter took the ice with Joe Pavelski on a sheet 10 miles outside of Madison. The two Wisconsin natives have known each other for decades, crossing paths as preteen prodigies at state tournaments, and later as NHL mainstays for 15 years.

On Thursday, they were playing in a charity game honoring Suter’s late father, Bob, and benefitting local Madison hockey families in need. Next season, they’ll be in Dallas as key parts of the Stars.

Suter signed a four-year contract worth $3.65 million annually Wednesday, a pact that also carries a full no-movement clause for the 36-year-old defenseman. It was a deal that solidified Dallas’ top four after the departure of Jamie Oleksiak but carries with it some risk in gambling on Suter remaining a viable contributor as he nears 40 years old.

“We’re comfortable with Ryan, at his age, how he plays, the minutes he’s been playing,” general manager Jim Nill said. “There’s really been no decrease in his play over the last [few seasons]. We’ve been watching him closely. He’s been an All-Star, he’s a marquee player. We think he’s got four years left in him and can be a big part of our team.”

Suter was a surprise addition to this summer’s free agent class after Minnesota bought out the final four years of his contract two weeks ago. That left the veteran as an unrestricted free agent for the first time since he signed a 13-year contract with the Wild in 2012.

By signing his $14.6 million contract with the Stars, he will actually make more money than if the Wild had not bought him out. The final four years of his contract in Minnesota were worth $10 million in salary. He’ll be paid $833,333 for the next eight years from Minnesota as a part of the buyout, and he’s living in a state without income tax.

Financials aside, this summer has been “an emotional roller coaster,” Suter said. Suter told his agent, Neil Sheehy, that he felt 27 years old (the age players hit UFA) again with all the teams that reached out to him.

But he chose Dallas after talking to Nill, looking at the roster, assessing the quality of life in Texas for his wife and four kids and deciding the Stars have a chance to win a Stanley Cup.

“I want to go somewhere that has a chance to win, and I want to be a part of that for as long as I can be,” Suter said. “Four years, if I’m going to move my family somewhere, I had to have that commitment and they had absolutely no problem with that commitment. It was exciting because it was kind of the perfect thing. They didn’t flinch one bit when I said four years.”

Of course, Suter spoke with Pavelski about the Stars. They talked about the makeup of the dressing room. Pavelski extolled the virtues of the team’s youth hockey program, which was a big selling point when Pavelski arrived two summers ago.

“When a guy like him is telling you that all the guys on the team are talking to him saying ‘Hey, you’ve got to get him to sign here,’ that makes you feel great, that makes you feel welcome,” Suter said.

Suter will play either with John Klingberg or Miro Heiskanen. He should kill penalties. He could be an option on the power play if the Stars again choose to put Klingberg and Heiskanen on the same unit for long stretches of the season.

“If you’re going to have success in this league, you have to have a good top four,” Nill said. “We really feel that this top four is as good as anybody in the league. That’s what excites us.”

At 36 years old — he turns 37 in January — Suter knows it’s odd for him to get a four-year contract. (“Guys when they turn 36 really don’t get this opportunity, and we have it. We’re going to make the most of it for sure.”) But Suter also thinks he can play until he’s 45 years old.

When he was fielding calls from GMs around the league, they were telling him the same thing, Suter said.

“A lot of them felt the same way I did,” Suter said. “Like, ‘You can play as long as you want, the way you play. You really don’t get hit that often. You think the game. You make good, hard passes. You’re in shape, you take care of your body.’ Just all those things give me a lot of confidence that I can play after this contract if I want to.”

Suter does have a penchant for avoiding hits. Across the last three seasons, Suter ranked fourth in the NHL in total ice time. He ranked 596th in hits taken. In the same span, Esa Lindell was eighth in total ice time and Heiskanen was ninth. They ranked 30th and 27th, respectively, in hits taken.

Still, that doesn’t guarantee that Suter will be effective with Dallas as the contract ages. In the league’s history, only seven defensemen 39 or older have played 1,500 minutes in a season. Five of them are in the Hall of Fame, and one is Zdeno Chara. That’s the bet the Stars made.

But Suter feels like Dallas is his best shot at his first Stanley Cup.

“I felt there was so much pressure on this decision for me, personally, because I wanted to make sure that I picked the right situations to give me the best chance of winning the Stanley Cup,” he said.

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