The Dallas Stars have dealt with one of their restricted free agents, re-signing Mattias Janmark to a one-year contract. The deal carries a cap hit of $2.3MM, and will allow the team to avoid the arbitration hearing which had been set for August 3rd. Janmark will remain an RFA at the conclusion of the contract.
This deal is the very definition of a “prove it” contract for Janmark and the Stars, who will see whether the 19 goals he scored last season are a sign of things to come or a result of his 14% shooting percentage. For being almost 26 years old, Janmark doesn’t have a huge history of NHL success since he spent several professional seasons in Sweden and lost an entire year to Osteochrondritis dissecans. As Sean Shaprio of The Athletic tweets, Janmark seems to be the only professional athlete to have ever dealt with that specific disorder, which claimed his entire 2016-17 season following surgery.
Still, he has produced 63 points in 154 games and seems entirely recovered and ready to contribute this season. For $2.3MM he doesn’t have to produce any more than that, but he now has a chance to prove he deserves a long-term deal with an even higher cap hit. Next summer he’ll be in his final year of restricted free agency, meaning any deal would have to buy out almost exclusively UFA years. If he’s going to stay in Dallas and be part of the solution, he’ll have to show that he can be a consistent secondary scoring threat while being responsible enough to contribute on the penalty kill.
Wish they could have made it a 3-4 year deal. Janmark has a lot of potential if he remains healthy. He’s slotted to be 2LW and get more time on the PP so his point total should go up and make him more expensive next offseason