It's not even summer yet, but things have certainly picked up for the Dallas Stars since their season ended.
The 2016-17 campaign itself was forgettable for the Stars, as they finished second-last in the Central Division and fourth-last in the Western Conference, but since then, things have started to go their way.
Dallas had only a 6.4 percent chance of jumping into the top three in the draft lottery, but that's exactly what happened late last month when the Stars landed the third overall pick.
Then came the Ben Bishop trade Tuesday, in which the Stars landed the two-time Vezina Trophy finalist's rights from the Los Angeles Kings for a fourth-round selection in the upcoming draft.
As if that wasn't enough, the conditional second-round draft pick they obtained from the Anaheim Ducks in the Patrick Eaves trade back in February became a first-rounder Wednesday night, because the conditions of the deal were met when the Ducks reached the conference final and Eaves played in at least half of Anaheim's games in the first two playoff series.
Less than 48 hours after that, Bishop agreed to a six-year, $29.5-million deal with the Stars.
Dallas still has some problems to solve between now and the fall, and the term on the Bishop deal might come back to bite them, but the Stars are suddenly in better shape than they were only a couple of weeks ago.
Sure, they now have three goalies with cap hits of at least $4.5 million next season, so one of either Kari Lehtonen or Antti Niemi has to go, and they likely won't have a chance to draft one of the two most highly touted prospects - those being Nolan Patrick and Nico Hischier - barring another move up the draft board.
But they weren't expecting to get either phenom anyway, and they're now in much better draft positions than it originally appeared they'd be in. Plus, they could always use their improved draft slots as trade chips.
Consider the additional first-rounder from the Eaves deal, and the Stars now have some assets to further improve their roster.
Not a bad couple of weeks in Texas.
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