Dallas Stars Offseason Preview: Goaltenders

In this installment of the Dallas Stars offseason preview, we’ll take a look at the goaltenders in the organization. Here’s the depth chart including their contract status for the offseason:

Pro:

1 – Ilya Sorokin (RFA)

2 – Craig Anderson (UFA)

Farm:

3 – Daniil Tarasov (RFA)

4 – Dylan Ferguson (1 year @ 750k)

5 – Mikhail Berdin (signed to KHL)

6 – Amir Miftakhov (signed to KHL)

The Stars currently have the hard part figured out: Ilya Sorokin is the unquestioned number one workhorse goaltender. In his first season between the pipes in Dallas, he started 65 games and won 36 of them thanks to a sterling 91.9% save percentage. But aside from that, there are plenty of questions including who backs him up and who they can trust in the pipeline. The most important question, though, is what kind of contract Sorokin will ask for.

Sorokin is a restricted free agent but in his last year of team control, meaning the team will be looking to sign him to a long term deal. They attempted to sign him to one last offseason, but found his contract demands unreasonable and settled on a 1 year, $5m bridge deal. He’ll likely be looking for a raise on that, but likely won’t find much more in terms of AAV. Big money deals for goalies don’t always work out well, as evidenced by Sergei Bobrovsky’s albatross $8.5m AAV contract.

Andrei Vasilevskiy owns the second largest AAV in the RHL at just $6.5m, but his body of work was longer and more robust than Sorokin’s when he signed. As long as the Stars can get Sorokin signed to a market-level deal, expect the goaltender to be in green and black for the foreseeable future. The team is going to be very tight to the salary cap next season, which will impact the backup position.

The Stars have two internal candidates to play behind Sorokin, although both are also free agents. Craig Anderson is a UFA and had mixed results, but the team could be interested in resigning him if he’s looking for a similar contract to the $750k he played for last season. If not, prospect Daniil Tarasov was promising in the farm for the Texas Stars this year. With Sorokin the definite starter, the team might be willing to take a chance on Tarasov as a way to preserve cap space. But just how much cap space that will be remains to be seen as Tarasov is also a restricted free agent.

Dylan Ferguson is the only goaltender actually under contract next year, but barring something unexpected, he’ll likely spend the year fighting for starts in the farm. Two of the Stars best goalie prospects this year, Mikhail Berdin and Amir Miftakhov, have both opted to sign with teams in the KHL. They did not see a future with the Stars with Sorokin entrenched, but the team hopes to bring them back in the future if they’re willing to come back stateside.

Sergei Ivanov is their only other notable goalie prospect, but he’s also in the KHL for the foreseeable future. So expect to see the Stars make a push to sign or trade for some goalie depth-maybe a backup if they can’t bring back Anderson or just in the farm. They’ll likely take a goalie with one of their few draft picks as well, if they find someone they like.