The Dallas Stars are quickly looking to their up-and-coming young talent to take the reigns and hopefully help the team get over the Western Conference Finals hump that they’ve encountered the past two seasons.
Evidence of this can be found no clearer than the elevation of Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Borque to the NHL squad.
ESPN put out its annual list ranking every NHL team’s prospects, and perhaps to the surprise of some, the Stars landed in the back half of the rankings.
22. Dallas Stars
The Stars’ philosophy when it comes to young players has been that they’ll only do so if that player is guaranteed to be a mainstay in the lineup.
Dallas’ general manager Jim Nill made this clear when discussing the young players.
“They need to play games. They have to play games. They’re too young,” Nill said. “You’ve seen the development with the Logan Stankovens, Mavrik Bourques, go back to Roope Hintz, Jason Robertson, all these players spent time in the minors. You need to play games.”
Rachel Doerrie of ESPN, when ranking the Stars’ prospect pipeline 22nd wrote: “The Stars have made it their modus operandi to extract value out of late first-rounders and middle-round picks. They lack depth in the prospect pool but have a few players who are expected to play major roles at the NHL level. The fall in the rankings (they were No. 18 in the spring) is directly related to the graduations of Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque.”
Doerrie went on to say, “Lian Bichsel and Emil Hemming are the top names in the pool, and both are expected to play middle-of-the-lineup roles. Defensemen Christian Kyrou and Aram Minnetian have chances to play meaningful games, but they have less confident projections. Dallas might not have the highest prospect pipeline value, but if there is one team capable of developing future stars, it is the Stars.”
See the entire ESPN NHL rank list here.
