The Stars made their first big move of the trade season this year by sending off enormously underperforming defenseman Nick Grossman to the Philadelphia Flyers forwhat’s being reported as a 2nd round pick in 2012 and a 3rd round pick in 2013 (which originally belonged to the Minnesota Wild).
The 2nd rounder (which originally belonged to the LA Kings) could prove to be a very fruitful one as the draft this season is very deep. It also reaffirms my hope that the Stars just decide to call it a season, trade what they can and then tank for a better draft pick.
Grossman is a UFA after this season and didn’t look like he would be in the future plans for Dallas. The move opens up a spot that Mark Fistric should fill for the rest of the year and should also plant Philip Larsen into the rotation for the next five years as long as he’s progressing (and as long as Dallas re-signs him). I’m hoping the next move that Dallas makes would be to send off Sheldon Souray (who’s also a UFA) and bring up Jordie for the rest of the year.
The 27-year-old Grossman struggled mightly this season keeping up with the opposing forwards. He’d often find himself out of position trailing the play, which would mostly lead to point blank shots on Kari Lehtonen. He played in 52 games this year and had five points (all assists) while playing 18:59 of ice time (second most in his career).
He actually did alright working on the penalty-kill this season, most of it because of his willingness to block shots. He blocked 100 of them this season, most on the team (12 ahead of Trevor Daley) and his 119:05 SH TOI was the third-most on the team. He never used his big body to his full advantage though and was never physical enough around the crease. GM Joe did a great job in getting a couple of high picks for him.
I would expect Mark Fistric to take most of those minutes with Sheldon Souray taking the rest of it when he comes back. Goligoski might even see a few more minutes of time on the PK.
In his five-and-a-half year career with the Stars, Grossman played 333 games, had three goals and 31 assists and accrued 170 PIM.
