Trader Jim's, Or How The Dallas Stars Are Not Your Typical NHL Powerhouse

The Dallas Stars are off to the best start in franchise history through 15 games. They lead the Western Conference with 24 points and have already racked up 54 goals scored.

Take a quick look at their roster, and it's easy to see where all those goals are coming from: Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, Patrick Sharp, Jason Spezza, Ales Hemsky, John Klingberg and Jason Demers are the team's scoring leaders.

In today's NHL, drafting and development is the order of the day. Dominant teams like the Chicago Blackhawks and Los Angeles Kings have brought along their draft picks, then used the trade market and free agency to put them over the top. This isn't the case in Dallas. Besides Benn and Klingberg, everyone on the above list was brought in via trades or free agency over the last two-and-a-half years, making the Stars a league outlier in terms of roster construction.

The architect of the current roster is Jim Nill, hired by the Stars in April 2013 as a first-time General Manager. He has managed to to turn the Stars around quickly—and in a way that runs contrary to everything many believe to be the current recipe for league success. Of the five leading scorers on last year's Stanley Cup-winning Blackhawks, four were drafted and groomed by Chicago. Their opponent in the finals, the Tampa Bay Lightning, developed their top four scorers in-house.

The Stars, meanwhile, have put together their lineup by seeing opportunity where others didn't. By making moves. In an interview with VICE Sports, Nill said this was largely a matter of circumstance, not philosophy. After all, he spent 15 years as the assistant General Manager of the Detroit Red Wings, a team known for drafting well and letting their players develop slowly through their minor league system.

"I still believe that it's a drafting and developing league and always will be," Nill said.

Still, he came into Dallas with trade guns blazing, dealing for then-39-year old defenseman Sergei Gonchar and then-34-year old former Edmonton Oilers captain Shawn Horcoff.

"You can't replace experience," he said.

Neither Gonchar nor Horcoff lasted longer than two seasons in Dallas. Some trades work well; some, not so much. Nill kept dealing. Less than three months into his tenure, he pulled off one of the biggest blockbuster deals in recent NHL memory, one that would drastically alter the course of the Stars.

Amid growing concern over then-Boston Bruins' scorer Tyler Seguin's off-ice partying, Nill dealt three prospects and then-27-year old All-Star Loui Eriksson for the then-21-year old Seguin.

It was a trade that was, as Nill describes it, a "unique situation." For all of Seguin's perceived shortcomings, Nill relied on his own experience. During Nill's time with the Detroit, Seguin played for the OHL's Plymouth Whalers and Nill lived just 10 minutes from their arena. Nill would go see Seguin and the Whalers more than 30 times a year when he was in charge of the Wings' amateur scouting.

"I knew who Tyler was," says Nill. "I had known him in the community, had a good feel for him and knew who he was as a person. I wasn't too worried about the off-ice stuff. He's a young guy and young guys are going to have some fun."

Nill says rumours of Seguin's partying weren't a concern for him or owner Tom Gaglardi. Seguin has since stated that he believes the Bruins gave up on him too early.

"Every player has things they need to mature on. Tyler would be the first one to admit that," Nill said.

The Seguin trade was only the beginning. Nill traded for bonafide scorers Jason Spezza and Patrick Sharp in each of the last two offseasons. He then landed defenseman Jason Demers and goaltender Antti Niemi from San Jose. Niemi was only one year removed from a 39-win season.

The moves have been informed by Nill's understanding of the NHL's salary cap and its impact on teams.

"Teams had cap situations and they knew they were going to have to move some players," he said. "The numbers weren't going to add up. With the cap, it's like taking a piece of the pie and there's only so much pie to go around."

Nill repeatedly mentions assets when discussing trades. He took over a team that had drafted relatively well. Some of the Stars' second and third round finds had turned into quality NHL players such as Trevor Daley, Alex Chiasson, and Reilly Smith, who were all flipped for the bankable forwards now leading Dallas in scoring.

NHL teams that develop good young players will eventually have to pay up to keep them with the club, as the Blackhawks have been forced to do. An observant GM can take advantage, and that's how Nill picked up Sharp. But he hopes that one day the Stars will be in the same position the Blackhawks were in this previous offseason.

"It's a juggling act," he says. "It's no secret that Chicago is a good team. And when you win Cups, players whose contracts come up are going to want market value. And for a lot of them, the numbers don't add up. So you're going to have to lose some players."

The Stars currently have the third largest cap hit in the NHL, but also have only the 16th highest total salary in the league, meaning nearly all of their salary is going towards roster players and not to retained salary. In other words, Nill has made efficient use of his franchise's cap space. That matters, because it's a lot easier to convince your boss to spend more money when you can all but assure him that money won't be wasted.

Acquiring players with large cap hits on the wrong side of 30, like Spezza and Sharp, is always a risk. But for Nill, the risk was mitigated by both players being known commodities. Instead of signing young players to monster deals based on what they could be, and then hoping for the best, Nill has utilized an owner with deep pockets and passion for the game to take the Stars in a different direction.

"(Older players) may bring something that you hope rubs off on the younger players," Nill said. "And help us take the next step."

Are the Stars built for the future? Hardly. Their two highest paid forwards, highest paid defenseman and two NHL goalies are older than 30. But the Benn/Seguin duo will be the team's centerpiece for years to come, and if Nill has proven anything so far, its' that he has the ability to build a strong supporting cast around them.

When Nill took over as GM, the Stars ranked in the bottom third of the NHL in average attendance over the previous three seasons. According to a 2011 Forbes report, the team had lost $38 million during their previous fiscal year and $92 million over the previous three seasons.

Still, Nill says, there was "no time frame" to putting a winning club on the ice. Instead, he was largely given free reign to build a club as he saw it, and took advantage of the opportunity.

"There was no real direction for the team," he said. No longer. So far this season, Dallas' direction is clear, even if it is a different one from the rest of the NHL. And that could mean more deals in the future.

"We like our team, but we're not where we need to be yet," Nill said. "We can still get better."