Stars Trade Brendan Dillon to Sharks; Receive Jason Demers

Dallas Stars and San Jose Sharks swap blue-liners early in season

On Friday, it was announced that the Dallas Stars made a blue-line swap with the San Jose Sharks, sending Brenden Dillon to the West Coast in exchange for Jason Demers.

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Dillon, who spent the majority of the summer in tough negotiations for his contract renewal with the Stars, comes to San Jose with a $1.25 million cap hit. Demers, who has over 300 NHL games under his belt, had some of his $3.4 million cap hit eaten by his former Pacific Division franchise.

While picking up Jason Demers isn’t something that any team should be upset about, swapping him and Dillon seems like a strange move. The Dallas Stars will have now made three player transactions in the first 20 games of the season, all involving blue liners — it seems like the team is trying to bolster its defense, and nothing is particularly working.

This news came on the day that the Stars announced a four-year contract extension for veteran forward Jason Spezza; they thanked Dillon for his time and contributions to the franchise and wished him well in his career.

According to NBC’s Pro Hockey Talk, the Sharks described their end of the trade as a positive move made to pick up an upward-trending defensive player with some size, who simply happened to be a late bloomer. The Stars, on the other hand, described the addition of Demers as a necessary boost to the blue line; this former seventh round pick comes with both a strong two-way game and a right-handed shot, which the team started off the 2014-2015 season completely lacking on defense.

This trade came just one day after the Stars defeated the Arizona Coyotes in a 3-1 third period comeback at home at the American Airlines Center in Dallas; sloppy play from the Coyotes at the finish was the only real reason the Stars won, and it’s likely the team was concerned that wins were becoming too rare for the Central Division franchise.

They will likely get a chance to debut Demers Saturday night against the Los Angeles Kings.

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