I believe that continuing like we have will end in disappointment, so if i have any expectation it is that we make some kind of move - anything to shake up this lineup a bit.
The first move is to put Seguin on LTIR to free up damn near $10M in cap space. I'm honestly not sure why Nill hasn't done that already, but I'll assume he has a good reason. From there I would look at getting a top 6 forward and perhaps a middle pairing D man. There have been rumblings of Zibanejad moving. Giroux too. Either would be a massive upgrade to our forward corps. If you peruse the list of 2025 UFAs there are several names that jump out at me as possible targets: Brock Boeser, Brock Nelson, Brad Marchand (please, no), Gustav Nyquist (although I doubt we'd deal inter-divisionally), Frank Vatrano (great player, would thrive in Dallas' system), or Kyle Palmieri - any of those guys would be be a great addition and would add a ton of depth to our forwards. On the D side it gets a little trickier, but from that same list Marcuss Pettersson's names jumps up. Other than that, it would be a trade of some kind that would be sorta hard to predict from here.
I didn't like our offseason moves and I immediately saw us a a downgraded team from the previous season. Exit Ty Dellandrea, Joe Pavelski, Radek Faksa, Jani Hakanpaa, Craig Smith, Ryan Suter, Joel Hanley and possibly others I am forgetting at the moment. In we bring Colin Blackwell, Brendan Smith, Matt Dumba, and Ilya Lyubushkin. Only that last one has exceeded my expectations. Blackwell is serviceable and Smith is ok, but Blackwell is nowhere close to replacing Pavelski's production or Faksa's puck hounding. Smith lacks a defining skill that sets him apart from any bottom 6 d-man other than being large.
Dumba has not fit in at all and this is no surprise to any Stars fan. Again, he's ok, but he was not an upgrade to anyone we lost on the back end last season. I'd dare say if I were a GM in a pickup game I'd grab Hanley over Dumba.
So by virtue of the fact that we have some players whose cup window is closing, we have about $10M to spend, and we are treading water at best in the standings, it seems pretty clear to me that we need to shake some things up. Sure, the flu going around the room isn't helping on an individual game basis, it's the underlying weaknesses that are evident and need to be addressed. Either that or it's time to admit we missed our window and start preparing for a few years of pain. That's Boston. That's not us, yet, but may be us soon enough. I think this team still has the core components to win it all - we just need some better supporting cast members.