That works out to a $5.25M cap hit, a slight lower in common annual pay from the six-year, $34.8M extension with a $5.8M cap hit he signed in 2019 to maintain him off the RFA market. He’s coming into the ultimate season of that deal. His extension carries a no-trade clause from 2025-26 by way of 2027-28 and a 20-team no-trade record within the 2028-29 and 2029-30 campaigns. The total breakdown is as follows:
2025-26: $4M base wage, $2.5M signing bonus
2026-27: $4M base wage, $2.5M signing bonus
2027-28: $4.25M base wage, $1M signing bonus
2028-29: $4M base wage
2029-30: $4M base wage
With restricted free agent Thomas Harley nonetheless unsigned with at some point to go till coaching camp, it’s not the contract information Stars followers had been anticipating relating to a top-four defender. However it’s a important piece of enterprise to maintain Lindell, one of many league’s premier stay-at-home defensemen for the higher a part of the final decade, in Dallas past this season.
Regardless of being 6’3″ and 220 kilos, Lindell isn’t a bruiser by any stretch. In truth, he’s considered as one of many extra gentlemanly gamers within the league, ending within the prime 25 in Woman Byng Trophy voting in every of the previous three years.
His shutdown sport is one in all consciousness and robust skating potential to keep up positioning whereas defending the push or back-checking. He was deployed closely in defensive conditions final 12 months at even power, logging 62.5% of his in-zone begins in his personal finish, and nonetheless managed to regulate 53.7% of anticipated objectives.
The 30-year-old Finn constantly has below-average shot-attempt shares, however he serves as a major instance of why CF% isn’t an end-all-be-all to find out how properly a participant controls possession. He might bleed low-danger probabilities however hardly ever lets high-danger probabilities attain the Dallas web.
Lindell isn’t a non-factor offensively, both. He’s logged greater than 20 factors in every of the previous three years, posting 5 objectives and 21 assists for 26 factors in 82 video games final season. He’s extraordinarily sturdy, too, having not missed a regular-season sport for the reason that 2021-22 marketing campaign.
His ice time has been bumped right down to extra conservative ranges since Peter DeBoer took over behind the bench for Rick Bowness within the 2022 offseason, although. After a half-decade of constantly seeing north of twenty-two minutes per sport, Lindell’s averaged 20:12 over the previous two seasons.
Lindell shall be once more tasked with anchoring Dallas’ second pairing this season, though there shall be a little bit of a contest for who finally ends up as his right-shot accomplice. UFA signings Mathew Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin are anticipated to contend for the function, changing 2024 trade-deadline rental Chris Tanev.
The Stars now have $37.5M in projected cap house for the 2025-26 season, per PuckPedia, assuming an higher restrict of $92M. That determine solely accounts for 10 gamers, although, with most of their ahead group (and star goaltender Jake Oettinger) slated for RFA or UFA standing subsequent summer season.
