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Report: Stars reject Brenden Dillon's 2-year, $3.8M contract offer

The Dallas Stars turned down a recent offer two-year, $3.8 million offer from Brenden Dillon's agent Jarrett Bousquet, according to a report from Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News.

The Stars are thin on the blue-line and, with the regular season approaching quickly, could use a player with Dillon's two-way chops in the lineup, but the club is apparently content to play hardball in contract negotiations with their best defensive blue-liner.

"It’s frustrating and disappointing, and I know Brenden feels that way," Bousquet said. "There is a market out there for him to be paid even more than this, so this is an offer that we think should get things done.

"He is clearly a top four defensemen, and there’s value in that,” Bousquet continued. "That’s the toughest thing to handle is they don’t see the value in what he has brought to the team. He should be worth the same as a top eight forward, if not more."

In recent years, NHL clubs have paid a premium for capable defensemen, and it's a bit baffling that the Stars value Dillon at a lower price point than $1.9 million per season. After all, he faced the toughest competition among all Stars defenders last season, posted excellent underlying numbers, and led the team's defensemen in even-strength time on ice per game. 

In other words he's not just "clearly a top four defensemen" as Bousquet put it, he's pretty clearly a top-pairing guy! 

Here's more from Heika on the rationale behind Bousquet's offer:

Bousquet has raised Florida defenseman Erik Gudbranson ($2.5 million) and Detroit defenseman Danny DeKeyser ($2.1875 million) as comparables, and his offer is significantly under those. The Stars could raise up a player like Torey Krug, who signed a one-year deal for $1.4 million earlier this week because he lacked negotiating power as a restricted free agent with no arbitration rights.

It's also probably worth noting that none of those players played nearly as many minutes per game as Dillon did last season.

Stars general manager Jim Nill, who has seemingly pressed all of the right buttons in his two years as the top hockey operations executive in North Texas, declined to comment on Heika's story, simply stating that he wasn't going to "negotiate in public."

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