Where do the 2025 Dallas Stars go from here?

It's hard to envy Jim Nill's summer.

His team, having been eliminated from the playoffs in the Conference Finals by the same team for the second year in a row, requires a lot of roster maintenance this summer and the cap space to do so is extremely limited.

It's not as though there's a shame in losing to a team as deep and high-end as the Edmonton Oilers, but the way it happened is obviously frustrating. And the headaches don't end just because the playoff run did.

As things stand today, the Dallas Stars have to re-sign or replace unrestricted free agents Jamie Benn, Mikael Granlund, Matt Duchene, Evgenii Dadonov, Colin Blackwell, Cody Ceci, and Brendan Smith. It also has to figure out extensions for restricted FAs Mavrik Bourque and Nils Lundkvist. And they have under $5.9 million in cap spa