All Quiet On The Dallas Front

As some of you may know, I am also an independent Dallas Stars journalist.  I wrote a piece about the hottest commodity in the NHL, the 100-point Winger Jason Robertson. After a quiet first day of the draft, the Dallas Stars did not move Jason Robertson.  Here is some of the inside scoop from the perspective of someone who knows more about the situation than your average NHL reporter.  It’s directly from my Stars Substack, Hockey Tonk. I will have more draft coverage coming very soon, so stay tuned!

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What are we gonna do, y’all? Sit around and wait. I wish I had more to report, but Robertson and the Stars seem to be at an impasse.  There was no Stars draft pick to speak on. Before I dive deep into what I expect to happen in the coming days, I would like to go over a timeline of events that transpired during a busy news cycle in the NHL. The consensus from “insiders” is that Robertson and agent Andy Scott are stuck at $14m AAV.  They are unwilling to come down, while the Stars are stuck at $12m AAV and are unwilling to come up. 

The Timeline

In January, Jason Robertson and his brother, Nick, changed agents, going with Andy Scott of Octagon Hockey. Octagon notably represents a large portion of the Stars’ core, including Wyatt Johnston, Mikko Rantanen, Thomas Harley, and (although not with Andy Scott) Jake Oettinger. This was seen as a huge positive by me and many others at the time. Given Andy Scott’s history working with Nill and getting many of our pieces locked up for the foreseeable future, it seemed this move almost guaranteed that Robo wanted to sign and stay here.

Fast forward to the end of the season. Robertson had 96 points, 45 goals, and played all 82 games for the team. This season, he became a true 2-way forward, improved his skating, and became an all-around better player. The Stars’ power play is one of the best in the NHL, and it is largely because of him. Robertson was one of the few Dallas Stars able to score 5v5 in round one against Minnesota. It was a contract year, and he played his ass off, earning him All-NHL 1st Team honors and massively proving his value to the Stars and the rest of the NHL. Olympic snub be damned.

This brings us to the past week. What a week it has been. For starters, Robertson (expectedly) turned down an 8-year $96m ($12m AAV) contract from Dallas. Suffice to say, it didn’t go over well with most of the fanbase, understandably so. I mean, Mikko freaking Rantanen is getting paid $12m AAV, who does Robertson think he is? I mean zero disrespect to Robo here, but I don’t think he is as good as Mikko, and most people with eyes can agree with that point. 

So why would Jason Robertson turn down that massive contract, besides the fact that he is a “diva” or whatever? Well, it is a simple economics issue. The market is quite different right now than it was, and context matters. Jason Robertson’s camp sits in a position of very high leverage, especially with the amount of shenanigans players are getting away with. Players have more power than they ever have before, and Robertson understands what kind of power he wields. 

He has been underpaid for the last three years and deserves a substantial contract. A needy team would happily pay him $15m+ AAV, as made evident by some of the contracts that have been offered to him. His offer sheet, which a month ago seemed like a price far too steep for most teams to pay, has been a hot topic lately, most notably among Ottawa Senators fans after the team moved on from Brady Tkachuk. Not just them, but multiple teams have both the draft capital and the money to offer Jason Robertson. Here are the two deals he has turned down so far:

• Seattle Kraken
  • Sign and Trade that involved an 8-year $120m ($15m AAV) and would have sent Seattle’s 7th overall pick to Dallas. According to multiple reports, the Stars were interested in flipping that pick and getting Matthew Knies from Toronto. The Stars permitted Seattle to negotiate with Robo, and Jason Robertson declined the deal.
• St. Louis Blues
  • Jeff Marek had reported that St. Louis had offered a package containing multiple first-round picks for Robertson and was willing to sign him to the same $15m AAV that Seattle offered. Still, Robertson was unwilling to play in St. Louis.

We’re left dazed and confused about what Jason Robertson wants. Is it money? Is it to be on a team he believes can win a Cup soon? Both? 

So What Does This Mean?

I talk to neither Jason Robertson nor to Andy Scott.  Additionally, I don’t talk to Jim Nill or Brad Alberts, so take everything I say with a healthy grain of salt. I have a brain and a lot of opinions, and it is good to have both in this case. 

Robertson obviously wants to be on a contending team. Turning down that kind of money is no insignificant deed. He clearly wants to be paid well, too, as evidenced by his turning down $96 million in Stars Bucks. He has made it clear that he wants to be in Dallas and to be the highest-paid player on the team. Despite the “better than Rantanen” conversation, I think he is absolutely justified and should be the highest-paid on the team. 

Not only has the salary cap gone up by $8.5 million this offseason, but it will continue to rise by about that much over the next 2 seasons as well. $12 million two years ago is not worth $12 million now, and it will be worth even less in two more seasons. In 2 years, that $14 million asking price will feel much closer to around $10.5-$11 million in today’s NHL money. It is a matter of macroeconomics in the NHL. It isn’t even an NHL-specific thing.

Every sport across the board has seen the price of poker rise season after season. This is how things work in sports these days: today’s highest-paid player is tomorrow’s 5th-highest-paid player. Once upon a time, Dak Prescott was the highest-paid player in NFL history. How long did that last? Shohei Ohtani signed the biggest contract in MLB history in 2024 with the Dodgers at $700,000,000. The very next season, Juan Soto signed for $765,000,000 with the Mets. And he doesn’t even pitch!!!

This is not me saying “just sign Robertson to $14m AAV and be done with it.” I believe that he is worth more than the $12m initially offered by the Stars. His turning down those massive offers proves that he is worth more than that, but it also proves that he is probably willing to take a bit of a haircut to stay here. We drafted him; he loves it here, and he has the fans’ support, even though he’s not playing in a tough market like Toronto or New York.

What Happens Now

Well, no blockbuster trade happened yesterday, so for the time being, he is still a Star. I think one of three things will happen. We can operate at ~$8.8m (10% of the salary cap) over the cap until opening night, so we can make the room if needed.

One

The Amicable Option

We meet in the happy middle, at around $13- $13.25m over 8 years. He comes down, the Stars come up. We make room after signing Mavrik Bourque by moving pieces like Lyubushkin, Steel, or Faksa sometime down the road. There will be a more significant market for players like them further down the road.

Two

We Submit The Qualifying Offer

The Stars submit the qualifying offer of $9.3m, and this thing goes to arbitration or a holdout. This would be on-brand for Robertson, as he held out and missed training camp the last time we negotiated. He signed a very team-friendly deal and notched over 100 points that season. This option seems most likely to me, as it would give both camps much more time to negotiate and reach an agreement before the season starts. That would free up cap space to ink Bourque to a deal and figure out the rest.

Three

The Offer Sheet

This seems far less likely, given that the 2026 draft has concluded its first round, and the 4 compensatory picks would all be for 2027 and beyond. This slightly reduces the value, but there are definitely teams that have 4 of their own picks to submit. Jim Nill probably doesn’t accept a trade for much less than the offer sheet’s value, meaning a good player plus multiple draft picks.

A high price tag, but multiple teams have it. Robertson would, of course, have to accept the contract offer for this option, meaning that teams like Ottawa and Seattle would probably not be in the running. Maybe the Sharks or Ducks could try, considering they are both teams with aspirations to win now and have rostered players Robertson wouldn’t mind playing for. He is a SoCal kid, after all.

How Do We Make Room?

This is perhaps a bigger question than “how do we bring him back?” The Stars’ depth, at first glance, looks to be shot if we can’t spend any money on pieces to fill out the bottom-6 of the roster. This rings especially true if we have to move Sam Steel and Radek Faksa to keep Robertson. We had exceptional depth pieces on two-way contracts throughout the entire season last year.

We could lose a 7th Defenseman in Lyubushkin, too, if we ship him out, but we have NHL-ready defensemen in the AHL that played significant minutes for us last year. Not to mention, we do still have Tyler Myers as a potential 7th D if we’re able to bring back Petrovic for another year. Our 4th line will be good. Arttu Hyry is an NHL-ready center who is younger, much cheaper, and looks to be better than Faksa. Oskar Back and Colin Blackwell make fine pieces on the bottom line, too.

If we move on from Lyubushkin, we can even afford to keep Sam Steel on that 3rd line with (assuming Benn comes back, which seems imminent) Duchene and Jamie, a line that looked great last year. Also, uh, did we all forget we are getting Tyler Seguin back next year? He was playing very well before his injury last season, and I don’t see why he wouldn’t be a great 3rd or 4th line center for us again next year.

There is room to be made, and it can be made. Once Robertson signs, things can move forward to fill out the rest of the roster. A Mavrik Bourque contract is almost surely waiting to hear the details of the Robo deal before we find out what is happening there. I understand it can seem like the Stars are just running it back and hoping for better luck next year, but really, what choice do they have? While the Robertson contract puts stress on the fanbase and franchise, the Seguin albatross looms until next season. 

Try not to freak out, Stars fans. This is a negotiation: the pendulum swings one way, then the other. It would be bad business if both sides didn’t explore every available option. Nill and Co. will exhaust every option they have, and Andy Scott will leave no stone unturned. At the end of the day, I still think we bring Robertson back. My bold prediction? 

8 years x $106 Million $13.25m AAV

Do it, Jim. He is worth it. Sign him, and figure it out later so that we can all breathe.