Dallas Stars and Jason Robertson Avoid Arbitration with One-Year, $12 Million Contract

Who wants to come into the office on a Saturday, after all?

The Jason Robertson saga is over, at least for the time being. Dallas announced Tuesday evening that Jason Robertson and the Stars have agreed to a one-year, $12 million deal in advance of his salary arbitration hearing, which had been scheduled for this upcoming Saturday.

For the Stars, they get Robertson signed at the $12 million figure they’ve been sticking to since negotiations really began in earnest. For Robertson, he gets the certainty of a deal that really has no precedent, as he could potentially have made less that figure in arbitration, as we discussed last week.

As a reminder, here are the top RFA wingers who have signed deals in the last few years—and who would likely have been the primary comps for Robertson in arbitration:

PuckPedia

One suspects that Robertson came to the conclusion that he wasn’t likely to make much more than $12 million in arbitration, and potentially even a bit less. Since arbitration figures are different things than a player’s actual value on the market as an unrestricted free agent, getting a deal done at the number Robertson and Dallas did effects a compromise that avoids any further risk for both sides.

For the Stars, they probably also don’t mind the number because it keeps their cap structure for this season at least relatively manageable. They’ve above the salary cap by a bit over $1 million as things stand now, but if everyone on the roster is healthy after preseason games wrap up, Dallas can start the season under the limit without having to make any more trades. All they’d need to do is send two players (I’d bet on Arttu Hyry and Kyle Capobianco) down to the AHL to start the year, then bring them back up the moment an injury strikes—or when enough cap space has been accrued to fit one of them as-is.

Hyry, by the way, is still waivers-exempt, while Capobianco profiles as someone likely to clear them, like he did last year. But that might not even be necessary, because if Dallas begins the season with a player on LTIR like they did last fall, they could send down both of the waivers-exempt players on their roster (Hyry and Lian Bichsel) and finagle things to get as close to the cap as possible before putting someone on LTIR, thereby maximizing their LTIR pool.

The most surprising part of this whole thing might be that the Stars and Robertson managed to agree on anything at all, given how tough this negotiation has been. But deadlines make headlines, and that remained the case on Tuesday, when things finally got settled.

Here’s the first part of the Stars’ press release:

FRISCO, Texas – Dallas Stars General Manager Jim Nill announced today that the club has signed forward Jason Robertson to a one-year contract that will carry an annual average value (AAV) of $12 million.

“Jason has been a cornerstone of our franchise since he was drafted in 2017,” said Nill. “A dynamic and skilled player, he has been one of the league’s top offensive threats since making his NHL debut. We’re excited for what this season will bring for both Jason and the team as we continue our push to bring a championship to Dallas.”

Nill and Robertson will each speak with the media tomorrow (Wednesday).

We discussed a lot of the finer details of what a one-year deal means for Robertson on Monday, so check that out if you haven’t yet. One of the biggest points to keep in mind is that Robertson will no longer be able to sign an eight-year extension, as those will be phased out when the new CBA kicks in two months from now.

Instead, Robertson will now be eligible to sign an extension on January 1, 2027. That could be the new maximum term of a seven-year deal with Dallas, who will have more room to maneuver with Tyler Seguin’s $9.85 million cap hit coming off the books that same summer. It could also wind up being with another team, if he and the Stars still don’t see eye-to-eye on his long-term value. Because as we’ve discussed, the Stars simply can’t afford to walk Robertson all the way to free agency next summer. If they can’t work out an extension, then he’ll likely be traded before the deadline.

In other words, this deal does what arbitration would have done anyway: kick the can down the road. It simply happened more efficiently. Any sort of harmony between Robertson and the Stars is noteworthy at this point, though.

If you’re looking for some kind of indication about whether Robertson and the Stars could wind up working out an extension, then I suppose the fact that they came to even a small agreement is worth noting. But for my part, I’d have to think Robertson might wind up looking for even more than the rumored $14 million he was asking for this summer, particularly if he has another strong season.

For the Stars’ on-ice situation, you can at least remove all the qualifiers from your projected lineups. Because barring further trades, we will probably see something like the below, come opening night:

Hryckowian-Johnston-Rantanen
Robertson-Hintz-Seguin
Steel-Duchene-Benn
Bäck-Faksa-Kiviranta/Blackwell

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Myers

Oettinger
DeSmith

The hope would be that Seguin is healthy enough to match (or even exceed) what Bourque did last season, and that Harley can look more like himself than he did to start last year. There is a world where that happens, and it’s worth acknowledging it. A healthier Stars team could be a very, very good one, once again.

More likely, however, the Stars will profile as a team that would be fortunate to repeat their 112-point performance with what is essentially a thinner version of the same group from last year, depending on what you think of Tyler Myers and Joel Kiviranta.

If the team struggles and Robertson’s ask is too high for Dallas to stomach, will the Stars look at moving Robertson for multiple pieces, as they nearly did with Seattle earlier this summer? Teams do tend to get desperate when elite players are on the market midseason, so it wouldn’t surprise me if Dallas keeps that option firmly on the table when (and if) negotiations with Robertson and agent Andy Scott pick back up.

Alternatively, the Stars might be more open to going to a higher number with Robertson next summer, both because they’ll have more room to do so and because the market will probably have shifted enough to make even a $14 or $15 million ask seem not unreasonable. Being a little further out from Rantanen’s extension might also make such a deal more palatable for the team, but that’s only speculation.

In any case, the Stars and Robertson have made peace for now. As was the case last year, the best thing Robertson can do for his next contract is to go out and have another whale of a season. That would only be a good thing for Dallas—whether it’s for this year, or for many more years to come.