Looking ahead: Nill excited for the future

The Stars had a great season.

GM Jim Nill is determined to make next season even better.

Dallas jumped to seventh in the league at 108 points, finished in the top 10 in every major statistical category and was one of the last three teams standing in the playoffs. That's impressive. But Nill believes that a second year under Pete DeBoer and his coaching staff could be even better, as the team is building its core and welcoming in even more young players.

"We had a good season," Nill said in his post-season meeting with the media Thursday. "Now the goal is we have to hopefully get better. You do that internally and maybe through some free agency, maybe through some trades. We'll see where it goes."

In a lot of ways, Nill doesn't have that much work left to do this summer. He's already locked up the core of the team, including Miro Heiskanen, Roope Hintz, Jason Robertson, Jake Oettinger, Jamie Benn, Joe Pavelski, Tyler Seguin and Esa Lindell. Add to that list some very good young players in Wyatt Johnston, Thomas Harley, Nils Lundkvist, Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque, and you see where the "internal" improvement might come from.

Dallas has a restricted free agent in Ty Dellandrea, as well as unrestricted free agents in Evgenii Dadonov, Max Domi, Luke Glendening, Joel Kiviranta and Joel Hanley.

"We hope players are going to come up and push these players in the NHL," Nill said. "We're going to build our team up with as much depth as we can, and let's see where these kids are at."

The Stars have about $4.5 million in cap space right now, so opening the door for younger players is necessary. While Nill said the team, is interested in talking to Dadonov (coming off a $5 million cap hit) and Domi (coming off a cap hit of $3 million), it will be difficult to retain either. Still, Nill said the two acquisitions were great fits and very happy with their experience in Dallas.

"All the guys we brought in want to come back," Nill said. "They loved it here. We had a tight group of players here. The players that came in loved the organization and they all want to come back. Now, we need to figure out the dollar figures and see if we can make that work."

The Stars last season had to balance on a tightrope with the salary cap, and Nill said the team would like to have more wiggle room this year. Not only would that prevent the team from sending players to the minors and back every other day, it would also allow it to possibly obtain a player at the trade deadline. That's a big part of what he has to do this summer, because making a major move might ve difficult.

"Other than a trade, right now, I don't see anyone in free agency that's going to take you from here to there," Nill said. "To say we're going to add a $7 million defenseman, not going to happen, or anybody, anywhere."

The group of defensemen probably gets the most criticism from outside. Nill said he's reading the complaints. However, he believes in the group that includes Heiskanen, Lindell, Jani Hakanpaa, Ryan Suter, Colin Miller and possible Hanley. Harly played just six regular season games, so he will be a huge add from the start of next season. Lundkvist played 60 regular season games, but none in the playoffs. He also will likely be in the six-man rotation next season.

"I know everyone is disappointed he didn't play more, but he played 60 games this year," Nill said of Lundkvist, 22. "He had a good year. It was a good learning step for him. He knows what he's got to go work on. He was going to be the next man up if we got a couple of injuries. He knew that, he worked hard and he was very upbeat. And we're looking forward to his future with us."

Asked if he was concerned about the group of defensemen, Nill said no.

"We're third in the league in goals against, seventh in the league in goals for, third in penalty killing, fifth in power play…so something went right, something went good," Nill said. "I think we're going to be even better )on defense). Thomas Harley wasn't here to start the year, and he's here to join the group. Nils Lundvist is going to be a better player, so let's go from there. Now we're looking to get better all of the time. If there is something out there that makes sense for us - is it a signing? Is it a trade? - we've got to figure that out."

But coming off a year like this, the list of things to "figure out" is actually pretty short.

"You've got to give compliments to the coaches, they did a great job," Nill said. "They brought the team together and they played the way we wanted to play. I liked the way they took care of situations. They didn't fester. I thought they did a great job of managing the room. I told the players at year end, I've been around a long time and every night that we played I thought we had a chance to win. That doesn't mean you're going to win, but we had a chance every night. We had good goaltending, we good team structure, we could come from behind, we defended well, our power play was good, our penality kill was good. I really felt every night that I was comfortable in knowing we had a chance to win. And that doesn't happen very often."

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.