The hard work of an enforcer in the NHL is never done and for the Dallas Stars, their resident pugilistic master is about to get a nice bump in pay. The Dallas Morning News’ Mike Heika spills the details.
Stars assistant GM Frank Provenzano just confirmed that the two sides have agreed to terms on a two-year contract extension for tough winger Krys Barch.
Barch will get $825,000 next season and $850,000 in 2011-12. He made $575,000 last season and could have become an unrestricted free agent on Thursday.
What’s working against the perception of this deal is that the Stars have some rather important restricted free agents to take care of yet. Guys like James Neal, Nicklas Grossman and Matt Niskanen will be due for new contracts and Neal especially figures to get a sizable raise. Adding Mike Modano and Jere Lehtinen into the mix as unrestricted free agents who may or may not be re-signed and Dallas’ off-season gets a bit more interesting. For what it’s worth, CapGeek.com will have Dallas cap number for 2010-2011 as of this writing at just over $41 million once Barch’s salary is figured in. That total comes with 11 forwards, six defensemen and one goalie. Safe to say the Stars are in pretty good shape cap-wise.