Stars Sign Radek Faksa To Three-Year Extension

The Dallas Stars have a done deal with priority restricted free agent Radek Faksa. The team announced that they have signed the 23-year-old center to a three-year, $6.6MM extension. The big Czech forward will still be a restricted free agent when his new contract expires after the 2019-20 season.

Faksa’s $2.2MM yearly cap hit would be a bargain for most teams in the NHL. In just his second NHL season, Faksa skated in 80 games, logging over 16 minutes of ice time per game, and registered 33 points. Yet, in the context of Dallas’ big off-season, that relatively small cap hit further frustrates the Stars’ difficult cap crunch. Dallas has added Martin Hanzal, a center like Faksa, to a three-year deal that pays him $4.75MM each year, and one of the biggest names on the free agent market, winger Alexander Radulov, to a five-year deal that pays out $6.25MM annually, already this summer. Additionally, they traded for defenseman Marc Methot from the Vegas Golden Knights and the remaining two years and $9.8MM on his contract. Hanzal, Radulov, and Methot join Jamie Benn ($9.5MM), Jason Spezza ($7.5MM), Tyler Seguin ($5.75MM), John Klingberg ($4.25MM), Ben Bishop ($4.92), and Kari Lehtonen ($5.9MM) on a roster that is bursting with talent, but toppling the salary cap ceiling as well. With Faksa’s new deal, the Stars are committed to $74.2MM for a full roster of 23 players, but still have to re-sign RFA defenseman Jamie Oleksiak and will be hard-pressed for flexibility regardless.

The Faksa extension would seem to rule out the talked-about idea of the team trading the young pivot, but the team will have to make a move somewhere. It seems unlikely that Dallas is done dealing this off-season.