Cowboys Schedule Myths, Stars GM Jim Nill on Playoff Exit & Rangers Red Flags | Just Wondering

On today's just wondering with me, Norm Hitskas, an emotional, unemotional look at the strength or lack of it of the Cowboys schedule this year. Then a visit with the general manager of the Dallas Stars, Jim Nill, about the disappointing early exit from the playoffs and what lies ahead. And finally, the Rangers survived a rugged early season schedule, but there are some red flags about the club's ability to remain solid contenders. And now a word from our title sponsor. Eying retirement? We aim to turn your nest egg into a paycheck with half the amount you've been led to believe. Fluent Financial combines in house portfolio design risk management with income generating investments designed to aid your financial independence. Our goal is to develop an effective portfolio strategy to help you retire sooner and have a better lifestyle. Fluent Financial can also implement a program that allows business owners to install a cash balance plan, which may potentially reduce income tax payments. You've worked hard to become successful. Let us help develop an effective portfolio strategy that works for you. Learn more today about Retire Sooner, Better Lifestyle. For more information or to schedule a meeting, visit fluentfinancial.com or call (972) 852-4800. Every spring when the NFL announces that year's schedule, fans and media of every team in the league launch into breath taking analysis of the schedule and deem it strong or weak. Within a day or two, writers publish their game by game picks, win this one, lose this one, and that brings them to the year's final winning record that they project. We went through all of that last week here in Dallas Fort Worth, and by the way, every other NFL city did also. The problem is, it means almost, in fact, absolutely nothing. Nothing. That's because we can only guess at the quality of the teams on this year's schedule. For example, let's take last season in the NFL. Who would have guessed that Washington would win only five games? They won 12 the year before. Who had Baltimore as a team with a losing record? In the AFC West, Denver would win eight more games than Kansas City. Who would have guessed that the awesome Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes would be six and eleven? Those calculating the various strengths of schedules last year, did they have the bears an 11 game winner? Jacksonville winning 13? New England winning 14 and going to the Super Bowl? Who had Detroit in last place in the NFC Central? Or did anyone figure that no team in the NFC South would have a winning record? And the Cowboys, they won only seven games. Who would have thought that would have been clearly second best in the NFC East, which before the season, most people thought to be a really rough division. That's the problem with trying to analyze schedule strengths. We only use last year's records, but those can lead us far astray in making this season predictions because teams change. Again, for example, do we look at Washington this year as a five win team, which they were last year, or the 12 win team the year they were the year before? If we think of Kansas City on the schedule being a six win team, then that makes the schedule seem a lot softer than it really is because I don't think Kansas City's only winning six again. Last year, if before the season began, I had correctly told you Dallas would face nine teams with losing records and a tenth that was only nine and eight. Wouldn't you have thought the Cowboys would have won more than seven games? I know I would have. Now know this year's Cowboys. One respected outfit, sharp football analyst, using their guesses on what teams will be like this year, had Dallas playing the fourth toughest schedule in the entire NFL. But yet another respected outlet says Dallas will face the twentieth strongest schedule in the NFL. That's a bit of a difference. The DM the Dallas Morning News complained that the schedule maker has assigned Dallas three games in just twelve days in November, including with their hosting the Thanksgiving Day game against the Eagles. Hey, Dallas always plays three games in twelve days in November, because they host that Thanksgiving Day game, and that's a great thing to have. And this year, by the way, those three games in twelve days, they're all at home. That's a distinct advantage. There are complaints locally that clubs by week happens too late in the season. They get Sunday, December 13 off. But a late date like that, combined with being in home for those three consecutive games in mid to late November, could freshen a club for the run down the stretch. Analysts point out that Dallas flies almost 28,000 miles this season to get to their games, fourth most in the NFL. But hardly anyone points out or mentions the 10,000 plus of those miles is that one round trip to play Baltimore in Brazil. And all all this happens, Dallas and Baltimore going to Brazil because the NFL's trying to get a worldwide sport recognition. This season, the league has three games in London, another in Paris, Munich, Madrid, Mexico City, and by the way, there's also one in Melbourne. Had the league seen fit to send Dallas to Melbourne and back, that would have added another 8,000 miles to the travel this year. What I'm saying is all this prediction stuff might be fun, but that's all it is. Fun speculation. But as for me, I poured over this schedule and have come to these rock solid conclusions. Looking at everything, I think the Dallas Cowboys this year could be seven and ten, or they might be thirteen and four. What do you want from your favorite restaurant? Fantastic personal service, a cheery, welcoming, spotless atmosphere, and of course, great food. 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But this balm cuts the timeline to about a week. And ordering's so easy. Just go to the website, fullmoonhealingco.com. Our guest today is Jim Nill, the general manager of the stars for the last thirteen years. Jim spent the decade of the eighties playing in the National Hockey League. He represented Canada in the nineteen eighty Olympics in Lake Placid. That was The United States miracle on ice, by the way. He he then moved into the front office of NHL teams. Before moving to Dallas in 2013, he spent twenty years in the front office of the Detroit Red Wings. And for the last three NHL seasons, Jim Nill has been general manager of the year. Welcome, and thank you for your time. Norm, it's always a pleasure to be here, and, thank you for the introduction. Much appreciated. Before we get to the team, I wanna ask one Jim Nell question. You're now, in fact, you just turned 68 about a month ago. When is the last time how old were you when hockey was not a major part of your life? Probably about 14. I I ended up playing some pretty serious hockey at 15. I was a younger guy. Played it'd be junior B back back home which is a pretty high level. You're playing against 20 year olds. And then from there I went to tier one hockey, medicine hat, taggers, played. That's, you know, that's where you get drafted out of. And ever since then, it's been in pros, you know, pros in the Olympics and all that. So it's it go it'd be back to probably fifteen, fourteen, 15, somewhere in there. By the way, no. The game's been great to me. It has been unbelievable. By the way, Jim Niel once scored 47 goals in the season for the Mets and a half Tigers. Okay. Onto the team. Are you still stunned at how disappointingly and quickly this season end? Yeah. You know, that's one thing when it happens. When you do lose, it happens fast and disappointed, you know, definitely disappointed. You know, we had a great regular season, you know, third overall in the league. We're fighting with Colorado. You know, pretty well till the last two or three weeks for first overall in the league. The president's trophy and I I was proud of the way the guys battled. You know, lots going on. It was you know, with the condensed schedule, the Olympics, the Olympic break. We battled a lot of injuries right from day one. And, I was very proud of the work, you know, the way that the the guys battled in that. So great season, but, unfortunately, that doesn't didn't dictate over to the playoffs. We played a great team in Minnesota. You know, they were we were the number two seed, the number three seed. And, and in the end, they were a little bit better than us and and they won. Have you personally gotten over the season yet and the disappointment? Yeah, you know, you never really get through it. You know, you're kind of your your mindset switches to what's next up at what's the next task, but you're always thinking back, you know, what could we have done different? What, you know, what mistakes we made? What where we could have been better at? So you're always analyzing. But you gotta move forward pretty quick. We've got the NHL combines coming up in a couple weeks. The NHL draft is in just a little bit over. It's a little bit over a month. And then free agency hits in six weeks. So it's a it's a busy time. It comes at you pretty fast. You know, been talking to other teams already, general managers. You know, you gotta plan your budgets, your scouting meetings. So lots going on. So wait a minute. You've got the combine and the draft and free agency. When's your off season? It slows down a little bit in August. Depends if you, you know, if you happen to have arbitration cases. Arbitration cases take place the first week in August. So I get away kind of August. I'll I'll get away head up to Michigan. I got six grandkids up there, so I love to go up there and enjoy the nice weather, enjoy the grandkids. Usually, at this point of a postseason interview with you, I will ask what type of player you'd like to add to your team. But this year, is it health that you'd like to add to your team? Well, I think health and we'll we'll get that. You know, little bit of a reset and really just trying to resign some of our players. You know, it's no secret, you know, the Jason Robertson situation. We gotta get him resigned. You got Maverick Borka. I gotta resign. And unfortunately we got this thing called a salary cap that comes into play. We all get budgets in in life and we get a budget also in in hockey with a salary cap. And so we gotta try to fit this all together. We've we've got a good team. We got a lot of good players. And good players want to get paid, which they should, and now we gotta try to find a way to make it all work. Right now, there doesn't appear to be enough money available to get done what you need to get done. How do you create that money? We'll have to make some moves, you know, if we can get agreed to a contract here, depends on once again, depends what these players want. And if that happens, then we'll have to make some moves. We'll have to figure something out, make some trades, and go from there. I usually ask you about major moves you might make, but you're so restricted this year by the salary cap and the money you have available. But I've learned never to sleep on Jim Dill. Could you still make some major moves this offseason? No. We're looking at everything. You know? Do we have to move some some money out? You know, we talked about we gotta move some money out. Maybe it's a bigger situation than what we realized. I think this is going to be a very busy, chaotic, summer in the NHL. You've got a lot of teams, you know, with a salary cap. There's not a lot of free agents. You know, a lot of not a lot of UFA free agents and so I think there's gonna be more internal trades among teams. So I think it's gonna be a very busy season as far as that is. When whenever a player reaches his later thirties and the season ends, there's always speculation if that player is going to retire or not. Have you had any indication from the captain, Jamie Ben, if he wants to come back next year or not? Yeah. I I I talked to Jamie, at the end of the season. We had a good discussion. I told him, you know, take a couple weeks. You know, he he really hadn't made a decision himself. He he just wanted to he was fresh off the loss. It was hard on him. He was disappointed like every other player and I said, let's take it two or three weeks. You sit back, talk to your family, and let's see where you're at and well, further discussions. So, that's where we left it. And like I say, Jamie's been a great player for us and I'll let him make his decision kind of on his time frame. You missed a very good player virtually all season last year, Tyler Sagan, to a serious injury and surgery. Is Tyler Stegan going to be well at the start of training camp? Yeah, you know Tyler had an ACL. He tore his ACL which is really a eight to ten month rehab. So he should be available for the start of the season hopefully. We'll monitor that as we get closer. But we definitely missed him. You know, really Tyler was probably playing some of his best two way hockey that he's played in a long time. He he was producing points. He was taking major draws for us. Was a major part of all the special teams. So that was a major loss when we lost him, and we look forward to him being back with us. The Olympics requires the NHL to stop its season, and teams then send its very best players to the Olympics. And by the way, several of its very best players because some go to Finland and some go to Canada and some get it in The United States and so on. You you got some critical players hurt in the Olympics this year. It is the in season Olympics still a good idea, Jim? Yeah. I've got two sides to it, guess. You know, we lived it. I I'm you know, every team that was the fear of every team was was there going to be injuries and we we got hit with three major injuries. So yes it came into play. And just the wear and tear in the players. You know it's your best players are leaving to go play for their countries and they're, you know, we got some some pretty good players, you know, the Hastenins and Laddells Ratmans. You know, these guys played, they're playing twenty, twenty five minutes a night at the Olympics. So, they're they're not getting a break. Some of them got injured because of it. So, you so, there is that risk. We know that going in. On the flip side, you know, we're always trying to grow a business, grow our game, trying to get more fans involved and it's a great time to be able to do it. So, it it helps to, you know, sell our game not only in North America but you know, in in Europe and and everywhere else and you know, The US won it and you just saw the big boost that hockey got because of that in The US here. You know, it was a major boost. So, it's great for our game but there is the risk of player injury, you know, and two more years, we're going to have another World Cup. So, that's going to come in and play again. So, you know, and like you said, the problem is it's our best players playing in this and our best players play the most minutes in those tournaments and they play the most minutes for our teams also. So it's a lot of wear and tear in them. So I it's great for growing a game, but as a general manager, you always your heart's always pounding because you're there's a risk of injuries. Yeah. Despite having traded away some young talent the last few years to acquire veterans for run for the Stanley Cup. Every year, the stars seem to find one or two or more kids who push hard for roster spots. Do you have such players in mind this offseason? Yeah. We got a couple of guys that are coming in. We signed some guys out of college. Now it takes time, and everybody's got a different development curve, you know. At this time last year, nobody knew who was. You know, Maverick Bork was really hadn't really hit his stride yet. So, there's always somebody come along. We signed some young men out of college. We'll watch their development. Chris Kovian's got a brother that's one of those guys. He's coming up. So they'll start the American League and we'll see where they're at their pace. But you have to have those players coming. You know we've traded a lot of draft picks over the years. You know, to you know, try to win the Stanley Cup and then there's always the that's the risk reward part is you you don't have the draft picks nor the young kids playing but our our scouting staff's done a great job and our development team's done a great job of finding players, free agencies, whatever mode that helps to supplement our team, you know. Artuhuru, the Finnish player. Mhmm. He was a free agent. We got him out of Finland. So we're always searching for those type of players to help supplement the loss of our draft picks. I know I I wasn't going to ask about the type of player you should add because I know the type of player you want to add is Robertson and Bork under contract. But is there a lower cost type of player that you'd like to add this offseason? Well, you know, you're always looking at depth. I think it's important to have depth and that's really been a big part of our success as a team. You got to be careful. You can get too top heavy. You know and that's we're starting to get in that mode but we you know we're fortunate as I mentioned. We got very good players. So we're fortunate that way they can play heavy minutes. But you're always looking to find those depth guys. You know the guys that can play I guess guys that play hard. Maybe add some size to our lineup. You know, you're always get trying to get a little bit heavier. And on the flip side, you're always trying to go a bit faster. So you're always open to different scenarios. And, you know, the biggest thing is you gotta try to make the money work to fit into the cap. So what you're saying, Jim, is you want a big, fast, cheap guy. Yeah. That that makes that makes a million dollars. Yeah. And he's free. I'll be on the lookout for you. Yeah. You keep looking when you find one. Give me a call. I would be remiss before we finished without asking about your wife, Becky. For those who don't know, Jim's Jim met Becky when he was a player. They married like he said, he now has six grandkids. And starting in 1999, Becky has battled a variety of cancers and battled them significantly. How is she now? Well, thanks for asking, Archie. Becky, she's doing great. I would just spent the weekend. We just went down to St. Louis to see her mother actually spent some time with her. She's doing great. She's a great advocate for all the people out there that you know have battled different illnesses. You know cancers and everything else. And she's an advocate for that. She's always there to support other people. And she's the last person that is ever going say pity me. She she's great. You know, a great role model for our grandkids and our kids and has so many friends out there that she's worked with and she like I said, she's got great faith, strong believer in god, and she's doing very well. Thank you. See, what you need, Jim, is you need to find her the right pair of skates because as confident she is, she might be the person you're looking for. She's the one I'm looking for. Problem is she she don't want too much money. God bless, Jim. God bless, Becky. I look forward to our paths crossing again. Thank you for your time. Yeah. And Norman, thank you and, God bless you, you and your family, and, thanks for everything you do, out in the Dallas Fort Worth area. You're a real real kind of hero to all of us and a great mentor. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jim. Are you just wondering where your next spectacular vacation will be? Relax. Feel the sun on your body. Let your cares melt away at the all inclusive Cerenian Bay Resort in Southern Belize. It's literally built right on the sand. The ocean, your ocean, is just a few barefoot steps away. 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Should you know a sports fan who might like our work? Please share our contact information with that person. Thanks for listening to today's episode of Just Wondering. I'm Norm Hitschkes, and know that every day I'll be just wondering about something. And I'm Mary Hitchkis, and I'll just be wondering too. This is a Stolen Water Media production.