The Dallas Stars signed Nathan Bastian earlier this week, but the numbers aren't quite adding up now when looking at the bottom six forwards for Dallas.
Suddenly, the Stars have yet another fourth line player.
Dallas has already brought Radek Faksa back after a one year stint in St. Louis, most likely to go right back to his center position on the fourth line. The thought was that Sam Steel, Oskar Back and Colin Blackwell would rotate through the other two spots based on how each was playing. After all, the Stars re-signed each of them at different points over the last season based on how they performed for the team.
Now, add in Bastian and there are supposed to be five players for three spots on the fourth line?
Probably not, which means Dallas is banking on one of those forwards contributing on the third line. The third line is already banking on Jamie Benn having a good season and not a continuation of what happened at the end of last year and the playoffs where he couldn't score to save his life.
The problem is, Steel, who seems most likely to play on that third line, scored six goals last season. Evgenii Dadonov, who moved on to New Jersey, contributed 20 goals playing a majority of the time on the third line.
This puts immense pressure on a top-six that includes an aging Matt Duchene and Tyler Seguin. Dallas could be in a world of trouble if they can't get scoring from who they expect it from, because the bottom six seems like a collection of fourth-liners with no clear picture of how they will fit together right now.
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