Exercises in Futility
Dallas Stars trade Jagr and Roy to continue the team's fire sale
Well, at least the Dallas Stars won’t have to stretch out this season too much longer. The team only has 13 of its strike-shortened 48 games left before missing the playoffs for the fifth year in a row.
The fire sale is officially on in the organization after winger Jaromir Jagr and center Derek Roy were traded to Boston and Vancouver, respectively. This comes on the heels of last week’s trade of former captain Brenden Morrow to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
NHL veteran Jaromir Jagr led the Stars with 14 goals and 26 points in 34 games..
The Stars’ front office is looking to the future for any sign of life after the 2012-13 campaign slowed to a 16-16-3 standstill full of equal parts potential and frustration.
This is a team with a season-high winning streak of four games from early February. Beyond that, it has only won back-to-back games twice and has not had a three-game streak. The Stars are, quite nearly, the definition of mediocre.
The Jagr trade signals the end of a brief marriage with the Czech mercenary who signed a one-year, $4.5 million deal with the Stars last summer. Signed to get the Stars back to the playoffs, Jagr led the team with 14 goals and 26 points in 34 games.
It was a shaky plan at best to rely on a 41-year-old to be a catalyst that transformed a middling squad into contenders, and the fault lies at the feet of the organization — not Jagr.
The trade to Boston yields two unproven prospects in Lane MacDermid and Cody Payne, and a 2013 second-round pick that would become a first rounder if the Pens make the Eastern Conference finals. It’s not exactly a wealth of riches for one of the best wingers to ever play in the NHL.
Nevertheless, Jagr and Derek Roy were both unrestricted free agents and could have walked away from Dallas at the end of the season, leaving the Stars empty-handed.
The Stars acquired Roy in the summer after trading fan-favorite Steve Ott to Buffalo. Roy is moving to Vancouver for a 2013 second-round pick and 23-year-old defenseman Kevin Connauton, who has a good upside if the Stars develop him. He’ll definitely get the opportunity to try.
That trade, as well as that of Brenden Morrow, means that the last 13 games of this campaign will serve as training for next year. Of course, that’s been a recurring theme at the beginning of April with the Stars for a while now.
