With Olympic Break Looming, Stars Must Make Trade Now or Play Waiting Game

With fewer than two weeks left until the NHL breaks for nearly a full month, the Dallas Stars and General Manager Jim Nill must decide whether to make a trade now or wait until the league comes back from the long break.

No trades are allowed during the entire Olympic break, which means if teams want to add a player, they must do it almost immediately or have to hit the ground running with March looming once the NHL resumes. The Stars made a move far earlier than the trade deadline last season, adding Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci on Feb. 1, which is less than a week away now.

The last day of NHL action is Feb. 5, but the Stars end their pre-break schedule on Wednesday Feb. 4 at home against the St. Louis Blues. Including that, only five games remain until then. Dallas has been struggling for the entire month of January, but has shown a bit more promise with two wins in the last three games. However, only four wins out of 12 games won't cut it in a division that includes the Colorado Avalanche and Minnesota Wild if the Stars want any shot at home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

It is clear Dallas needs scoring help, mainly someone to play with Mikko Rantanen and Wyatt Johnston to elevate the entire line to elite-level status. Mavrik Borque has played well with Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson, but Borque may well be in any trade package in order for the Stars to acquire a high-end forward. Recently, the Stars have been linked to Vancouver's Evander Kane and New York's Artemi Panarin, but what the Stars might have to give up for either and whether either fit in long-term is still up in the air.

Nill surely looks at the team and sees the gaps left by key off-season departures and injuries and knows he must do something. His hands are a bit tied based on what the team has to offer at the moment and with the draft picks already eaten up by the Rantanen trade last season. Any trade is also affected by the salary cap crunch the team is facing, especially with the still-unknown status of Robertson's potential re-signing as he becomes a free agent at the end of the season.

The team could use help as soon as possible, but it might just be inevitable at this point that Nill will wait until after the Olympic break to move forward with any big addition at this point. Surely, even without any trades able to process, there will be plenty of scheming during the break so that teams can use the short time between the restart and the trade deadline to the fullest.

What Nill can do during the Olympics is also up in the air, as he will be a part of the Team Canada brass for the Olympic run in Milan, Italy. While he might have more face-to-face time with other NHL management while there, it might not be the best time to talk shop for what is happening back in the regular season across the pond.

So while it seems inevitable that the Stars will make a move, the timing of it all is certainly still up in the air.

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