Mikko Rantanen<\/a> from the Carolina Hurricanes but Nill got him to sign a $96 million deal for eight years. At $12 million per season, that still places Rantanen in the top eight in the league \u2014 tied with Winnipeg\u2019s Kyle Conner and Vegas\u2019 Mitch Marner for sixth in AAV \u2014 but it\u2019s a very fair deal for Dallas. If you\u2019re Stars management, you don\u2019t want to pay Robertson more than you\u2019re paying Rantanen. If you ask 32 general managers which player they would rather have, Robertson might get a handful of votes.<\/p>\nIf you ask me,\u00a0Rantanen and Miro Heiskanen are the two indispensable players on this team for the next five years. If you choose to place Robertson third ahead of Wyatt Johnston and Jake Oettinger and Roope Hintz, that\u2019s your call. But he\u2019s not in the top two.<\/p>\n
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But players don\u2019t all sign contracts at the same time, so this sort of team disparity happens. The Cowboys would be in similar straits with George\u00a0Pickens if not for the franchise tag. CeeDee Lamb makes $34 million per season, but a long-term deal for Pickens would inevitably cost more. Atlanta\u2019s Drake London has a deal for more than $35.2 million per season, not because he is better than Lamb but because his time to sign came more recently. It can be that simple.<\/p>\n
Nill spoke to reporters Saturday and made it clear the Stars want to keep Robertson and that he does not begrudge the player for seeking more money than they have offered (roughly Rantanen\u2019s contract). But he turned down a lot more money that would have put him in Seattle, and they sell video game equipment there too, so I\u2019m not sure what life Robertson would have been unable to enjoy had he moved to the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n
Let me say a couple of things about Robertson. He\u2019s an extremely reliable player. Has not missed a game the last four seasons. His streak of 374 consecutive games played is eighth-longest in the\u00a0NHL. And in the last four years, Robertson has led Dallas in scoring every year but 2025 when he finished two points behind Matt Duchene.<\/p>\n
His performance in the postseason has not been as impressive. He averages 1.07 points per game in the regular season, 0.84 points per game in the playoffs. If you were to characterize it, Robertson has been pretty good in series the Stars lost, absent or ineffective in series they won.<\/p>\n
Overall, Robertson is a gifted scorer and nothing more. He\u2019s not going to set a physical tone for his team or be an ace penalty killer. He\u2019s not going to play center and win draws and feed his\u00a0wingmen. He\u2019s going to put the puck in the net, which is the hardest thing to do. He tied Johnston for the team lead with 45 goals last season.<\/p>\n
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Had he accepted the trade and the Seattle money, Robertson would have shot past not just\u00a0Rantanen but Colorado\u2019s Nathan MacKinnon and Vegas\u2019 Jack Eichel and Edmonton\u2019s Leon Draisaitl in annual salary. In no one\u2019s rankings or estimation is Robertson better than those players.<\/p>\n
You might have noticed that all the players mentioned today play in the Western Conference. Only Toronto\u2019s\u00a0Auston Matthews ($13.25 million) represents the Eastern Conference among the top annual salaries in the league. That\u2019s another cost Nill is dealing with, and it\u2019s a reason a team like Seattle, which advanced to the second round against Dallas in 2024 but has not been heard from since, was willing to overpay Robertson.<\/p>\n
My guess is that eventually \u2014 somewhere around $13 million per season or perhaps a little less \u2014 Robertson signs a deal to stay in Dallas.\u00a0Nill is really good at his job, so that\u2019s in his favor. But the West is pricey and, in a league where players tend to sign really long deals up to the maximum eight years, this is Robertson\u2019s moment to cash in. Personally, I would have taken the Seattle money and ran. Then again, I was 45 goals short of Robertson\u2019s total last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Stars left wing Jason Robertson (21) fights off Minnesota Wild defenseman Brock Faber (7) during the third…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2353,102,104,103,88187,88534,90780],"class_list":["post-355290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-commentary","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-jason-robertson","tag-tp-jim-nill","tag-tp-nhl-playoffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}