Dallas Stars likely to continue sell-off as deadline approaches

The Dallas Stars are sellers leading up to Wednesday afternoon’s NHL trade deadline with three players — forwards Lauri Korpikoski and Patrick Sharp plus defenseman Johnny Oduya — unrestricted free agents at the end of the season who could be moved.

On Friday, Dallas made its first move, trading veteran forward Patrick Eaves, who had set a career high with 21 goals, to Anaheim for a conditional second-round pick in the 2017 NHL Draft. And on Monday afternoon, the Stars shipped defenseman Jordie Benn, the older brother of Dallas captain Jamie Benn, to Montreal for defenseman Greg Pateryn and a fourth-round pick in the 2017 draft.

Among the other candidates to depart is Korpikoski, 30, who has 30 games of playoff experience and is valuable for teams seeking a fourth-line center and depth. Korpikoski has been traded twice before, but both deals were in the summer.

“It’s what we sign up for. We’re fortunate enough to play in this league,” Korpikoski said. “You’ve got to adjust and do whatever it takes. That’s the NHL, that’s how it works.”

Two seasons ago, Korpikoski was with the Coyotes when they made five deals between mid-January and early March, a massive sell-off after which Arizona went 4-14-1 to end the season. The Coyotes earned the No. 3 pick in the 2015 NHL Draft, which they used on defenseman Dylan Strome who currently playing in juniors.

But Korpikoski doesn’t see any parallels between the Coyotes’ situation then and the one the Stars are currently in. “It wasn’t fun. We still had games left and clearly, we were trying to get a high draft pick. It’s tough for your culture to go through that fire sale. I don’t see that happening here like there, but it sets the culture back a little bit,” Korpikoski said. “It was a tough, tough way to play those last games.”

Sharp, 35, has 142 games of playoff experience and has won three Stanley Cups, all with Chicago, two strong selling points this time of year. He has also been traded twice in his career, but never at the deadline.

“Yeah, I just think it’s something that every pro athlete has to deal with at some point in their life,” Sharp said. “We’ve got an unbelievable job and there’s a lot of great things that come with it. If there’s one negative, it’s situations like this where family life and more than hockey comes into play.

“But we’re playing the game for a living, it’s a great opportunity that we have. You want to try and enjoy every minute of it and not let those things bother you.”

Oduya, 35, has 102 games of postseason experience and won two Stanley Cups as one of Sharp’s teammates in Chicago. As a veteran defenseman with such an impressive playoff pedigree, he too has considerable value to a contender. But unlike Korpikoski and Sharp, Oduya has twice been traded near the deadline, going from New Jersey to Atlanta in February 2010 and from Winnipeg to Chicago in February 2012.

However, like most players, he doesn’t worry about whether he will stay or go, only about how well he practices and plays.

“I’m not going to deny I know what’s going on in this league and how things work. But when that day comes or not, I’ll be prepared for that either way,” Oduya said.

Stars coach Lindy Ruff, who also played in the NHL, has been through countless trade deadlines and expects his team to be focused for Tuesday’s matchup with the reigning Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins at American Airlines Center. However, he views the deadline a bit differently than most.

“If you get traded for a hell of a player, you can say, ‘Oh man, I got traded for a hell of a player,’ ” Ruff said. “No, I’m serious. It means that somebody thinks a hell of a lot of you if you get traded for a good player, so I look at it that way.”

This story was originally published February 27, 2017 at 8:29 PM with the headline "Dallas Stars likely to continue sell-off as deadline approaches."