Dallas Stars Release Traverse City Roster Full of Texas Stars

Radek Faksa (Credit: Christina Shapiro/Texas Stars)

The summer plods on and less than a month from now, the Dallas Stars prospects will take the ice in their new threads for the Traverse City Tournament. The roster for that tournament was released yesterday and it features a lot of current and future Texas Stars. Depending on how Alex Chiasson performs in training camp, you could even say it contains some 'former' Texas Stars too.

Here's the roster:

Valeri Nichushkin-Radek Faksa-Brett Ritchie
Cole Ully-Taylor Peters-Alex Chiasson
Nick Paul-Mike Winther-Matej Stransky
Remi Elie-Gemel Smith-Cody Payne
Curtis McKenzie-Jason Dickinson-Matej Paulovic
Brendan Ranford

Patrik Nemeth-John Klingberg
*Etienne Boutet-Jamie Oleksiak
Jyrki Jokipakka-Troy Vance
*Rinat Valiev

Jack Campbell
Maxime Lagace
Philippe Desrosiers

Italicized players are signed to Texas only.
* - Rinat Valiev is the only player here without a contract to Dallas or Texas or drafted by Dallas.

It is very promising to see the Dallas club able to put so many actual prospects on the ice. As Defending Big D notes, most years the Dallas prospects camp roster has been populated with more than a few players that were never going to be considered for an NHL or perhaps even AHL job. This year, only three players round out the roster as not being Dallas contracted or drafted. Two of those have contracts in Texas. Rinat Valiev is the only player in neither category. The 18-year old defenseman played last season in the USHL for the Indiana Ice, scoring 6-7-13 in 36 games and racking 43 PIMs.

The tournament begins September 5th at the tip-top of the Michigan peninsula. If you want to get there from here, the hot tip is to fly through O'Hare. It's not a terribly cheap trip, $414 round trip on Kayak as of right now, but the chance you have to mingle with hockey elite watching in the stands can be worth it for some.