The Dallas Stars re-signed center Matt Duchene to a four-year contract on Thursday.
Duchene’s new contract runs through the 2028-29 campaign with an average annual value of $4.5 million. The 34-year-old was a pending UFA after playing the past two seasons with the Stars on one-year, $3-million contracts.
“We are thrilled to have Matt back with our organization,” Stars GM Jim Nill said in a press release. “As our team’s leading scorer last season, he helped to solidify our forward group while also providing invaluable leadership off the ice and in the community. The fit with Matt and our team has been seamless from the start, and we’re looking forward to continuing to pursue our shared goal of bringing a championship to Dallas.”
With this new contract, eight players on the Stars have higher cap hits than Duchene does for next season, but none had more points than his 82 in 82 games in 2024-25. He also ranked third on the team in goals, with 30. Those were his best totals since his career-high 43 goals and 86 points with the Nashville Predators in 2021-22. Duchene’s 52 assists this past season, however, set a new high.
While Nill took care of getting Duchene under contract, the Stars now have some difficult decisions to make.
They have a projected $455,094 of cap space for next season, according to PuckPedia, but they still have six pending UFAs and two pending RFAs.
Among the UFAs are longtime captain Jamie Benn and trade deadline acquisition Mikael Granlund.
Benn, 35, finished an eight-year contract worth $9.5 million annually. While he had 78 points in 82 games in 2022-23, his point totals decreased to 60 in 2023-24 and 49 this past season. He also averaged 15:18 of ice time.
In the playoffs, Benn had a goal and two assists for three points in 18 games while logging a minus-11 rating and 13:06 of ice time.
Granlund, 33, had five goals and 10 points in the playoffs while averaging 17:27 of ice time. He also had 21 points in 31 games after the Stars acquired him and Cody Ceci from the San Jose Sharks in February. Dallas sent a first-round pick and third-rounder in the 2025 draft, but the Stars lost to the Edmonton Oilers 4-1 in the Western Conference final.
Granlund had a four-year contract with a $5-million cap hit. Overall, in 2024-25, Granlund had 22 goals and 66 points in 83 games.
The Stars’ other pending UFAs are Evgenii Dadonov, Colin Blackwell, Ceci and Brendan Smith. Their RFAs are Mavrik Bourque and Nils Lundkvist.
Three massive contracts kick in for the Stars next season.
Dallas signed starting goaltender Jake Oettinger to an eight-year contract extension with an $8.25-million cap hit last October. At the trade deadline, they re-signed 22-year-old Wyatt Johnston to a five-year deal worth $8.4 million per season.
Also at the trade deadline, the Stars pulled off a blockbuster by acquiring right winger Mikko Rantanen from the Carolina Hurricanes and signing the 28-year-old to an eight-year contract with a $12-million cap hit.
Those massive signings don’t leave enough room for the team to bring back everyone. That’s led to speculation about who might not come back or what cost-cutting moves the Stars could make. That includes potentially trading their second-top scorer, Jason Robertson, or buying out the contract of Matt Dumba.
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