Stars sign late-round draft pick to AHL deal, add affiliate depth
Artem Shlaine’s AHL deal turns a fifth-round flier into a real pipeline test, while Texas keeps stacking familiar depth after a deep playoff run.
The Texas Stars turned a fifth-round flier into a longer-term bet, signing Artem Shlaine to an AHL contract and betting that a player taken 130th overall in the 2020 NHL Draft can keep pushing up the organization’s ladder. Shlaine, 23, first reached Cedar Park, Texas, on an amateur tryout after finishing his college career, then played six games for Texas at the end of the 2024-25 regular season.
That is the real point of the move. An AHL deal is not a splashy headline, but for a club trying to keep its affiliate stocked with playable depth, it is a way to turn a short tryout into a controlled development path. Shlaine came in as a late-round pick of the New Jersey Devils and earned a longer look with Texas on the strength of those six games, a small sample that still gave the Stars something concrete to build on.
Texas made a similar call on defenseman Tommy Bergsland, signing him to an AHL contract for the 2025-26 season on July 17, 2025. Bergsland, 24, had already skated in six regular-season games and five playoff contests for Texas after finishing his college career, making him another familiar option the club chose to keep in the fold rather than send back into uncertainty.
Taken together, the two signings show how the Dallas Stars use their American Hockey League affiliate as more than a holding pattern. Texas, the NHL club’s farm team, spent the spring still in the 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs before its season ended in Game 5 of the Central Division Semifinals against the Chicago Wolves on May 5, 2026. Once that run ended, the focus shifted back to the next wave of players who might be ready when Dallas needs them.
That has been the pattern across Dallas’ roster work in 2025 and 2026, with the organization keeping up a steady stream of prospect signings, extensions and affiliate moves. For a front office that has to balance immediate NHL needs with the churn of an AHL season, deals like Shlaine’s are not just paperwork. They are the first proof point in a development system that is trying to find real value in places most teams never get much from.
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