Dallas Issues Qualifying Offers for All but Julius Honka

(Credit: Texas Stars)

After much promise, former first-round pick Julius Honka was the only player on the Dallas slate not tendered a qualifying offer today ahead of the 5 PM ET deadline. The players who were tendered offers included (Texas Stars from 2021 season italicized):

  • Nick Caamano – RW
  • Joseph Cecconi – D
  • Ben Gleason – D
  • Joel Kiviranta – LW
  • Adam Mascherin – LW
  • Colton Point – G
  • Jerad Rosburg – D
Among the set, only Nick Caamano and Joel Kiviranta did not play for Texas this year. However, all of these players have played for Texas at some point.

Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill's philosophy on assets overall is that it's better to keep them and not need them than the reverse. Since his arrival in the organization, Dallas has been very loathe not to offer a QO to a player. The rare unqualified player was usually a clear cut case of a miss on the signing or not having enough roster spots to justify the QO. A case of the former would be Tony Calderone. A case of the latter would be Philippe Desrosiers.

For Honka, it was a milieu of so many things: the expectations put on him by his draft choice, the experience he had in Dallas of sitting in the press box for much of his tenure there, not being able to translate his AHL game to the NHL, and clearly, some desire to keep playing but perhaps in Europe.

For more information on what a qualifying offer means, check out the 100 Degree Hockey Glossary.

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