Back-to-back: Nill’s accomplishments highlighted in GM of the Year award

The great thing about Jim Nill winning GM of the Year for a second consecutive season is the fact he probably did an even better job this time around.

Now, that’s not to diminish what the Stars’ main man accomplished in the 2022-23 season, it’s just that his encore performance was pretty darn impressive.

Last year, Nill had to restructure the coaching staff by bringing in Pete DeBoer, Steve Spott and Alain Nasreddine. He then added to the roster with free agents Mason Marchment and Colin Miller, made trades for Nils Lundkvist, Evgenii Dadonov and Max Domi, and made the decision to call up Wyatt Johnston as a 19-year-old. All of the moves worked out well, and that’s part of the reason Nill was awarded the Jim Gregory NHL General Manager of the Year Award, which is voted on by league GMs, as well as a panel of NHL executives and media.

Also contributing to the honor was the state of the Stars organization. Nill took over in April 2013 and has navigated plenty of ups and downs. He won a division championship with Lindy Ruff at the helm in 2015-16. He then moved through Ken Hitchcock and Jim Montgomery as head coaches, and found some success with a patchwork coaching staff led by Rick Bowness. During that span, Dallas lost to eventual Stanley Cup champion St. Louis in Game 7 in the 2019 Second Round and made it to the Stanley Cup Final before losing to Tampa Bay in 2020.

In 2022, he made the switch to DeBoer. The team has since posted consecutive 100-plus point seasons and appearances in the Western Conference Final. That, in itself, is noteworthy.  But the big reason for all of this is the fact that Nill and his staff have built a roster from within using a group of 20-something year old draft picks that includes Roope Hintz (2015), Miro Heiskanen (2017), Jake Oettinger (2017), Jason Robertson (2017), Ty Dellandrea (2018), Thomas Harley (2019) and Johnston (2021).

In line with that group are Mavrik Bourque (2020), Logan Stankoven (2021), and Lian Bichsel (2022), as Nill and longtime friend Joe McDonnell may have mined the draft better than any other organization over the past several seasons.

After losing to Vegas in the WCF last season, Nill went to work. He signed Dadonov to an extension and added Matt Duchene, Sam Steel and Craig Smith via free agency. Because Nill had to negotiate contract extensions for Hintz ($8.4 million), Robertson ($7.75 million) and Oettinger ($4.0 million) in the previous year, there wasn’t much cap space left. So he got Duchene after a buyout from Nashville for one year at $3 million, landed Steel at $850,000 for one year when Minnesota didn’t make a qualifying offer, and snapped up Smith on a one-year deal for $1 million.

Duchene proved to be a huge bargain, tallying 65 points (25 goals, 40 assists) in 80 games, while Steel (9 goals, 15 assists) and Smith (11 goals, 9 assists) were a big part of the team’s mission to increase depth scoring.

Nill said the biggest concern after last season was adding a few more offensive-minded players throughout the lineup and he did just that. Dallas finished with a franchise record eight 20-plus goal scorers and moved its goals per game average from 3.43 (seventh) to 3.54 (third). That might not sound like a ton, but the point total for the team went from 108 (8th) to 113 (2nd). It was the second-best season in franchise history and gave the Stars their first division championship since 2016.

That’s some strong GM-ing.

The hard part is this is not the trophy Nill is seeking. He would love to win a Stanley Cup in Dallas (he was a part of four championships in Detroit), and that means he has to roll up his sleeves and get to work on next year (truth is, he’s already started). At the top of the to-do list is to try to get Chris Tanev signed. The right-handed defenseman was the exact right player at the right time when he was acquired in late February. Now, Nill has to see what the impending free agent wants at age 34. With the team light on right-handed defensemen, it seems the first order of business is to see if they can get Tanev under contract.

If they do, they can then look at the rest of the roster. Do they need another righty on the blue line with Jani Hakanpää as a potential departure in free agency and Lundkvist being scratched for the final seven games of the playoffs? With Joe Pavelski saying he won’t return next year, do they need to lock up Duchene at age 32? It appears they have made room for Stankoven next season after he played 24 regular-season games and 19 more in the playoffs. Can this roster handle even more youth in the form of Bourque and Bichsel? Do they need to look outside the organization to add depth on defense or in a forward spot?

That’s for Nill to decide.

The team lost Domi, Miller, Luke Glendening, Joel Kiviranta, and Riley Tufte, among others in the 2023 offseason. It’s part of the turning of soil that happens to every NHL team. The great thing for Nill is he has already set a great foundation for this organization. He and his staff have more than earned the GM of the Year title for consecutive seasons.

And, he will tell you, there still is a lot of work to be done.

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.