Stars not expected to be very active in free agency

From Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News:

While the NHL salary cap has been announced as $56.7 million for next season, the Stars' budget is expected to be somewhere around $52 million.

That means the Stars have less than $3 million to spend when NHL free agency begins at 11 a.m. today.

Hicks calls the budget flexible but said the team learned a lesson last season when it unintentionally missed out in free agency and then had plenty of room to acquire center Brad Richards and his $7.8 million contract in February.

Read the entire article here.

Not a bad plan from the Stars here. Leaving flexibility down the road can turn out to be very important during the season and especially at trade deadline time. Never mind the fact that most teams will probably overpay today for the players they sign on the market.