Looking at Every Player the Dallas Stars Could Hypothetically Trade This Summer

Let's get comprehensive, baby

The Stars need some more salary cap space. This is not breaking¹ news. What will be news, whenever it breaks, is how they give themselves that space.

Jason Robertson is the impetus behind all of this talk, and he should be, considering that he’s averaged 40 goals per season across each of the last five years and scored nine goals among 12 points over his last nine playoff games. That’s the kind of player a team either has or is trying to get.

The Stars have two choices, realistically speaking. They can either re-sign Jason Robertson, which requires more cap space, or they can trade Jason Robertson, which would provide them with either a comparable player or else more cap space with which to pursue said player(s).

At this point, I still think the path of least resistance for both sides is for Robertson to be locked up long-term. But whether Dallas does so or not, some trades will need to happen this summer. So today, let’s look at every player in the organization the Stars are technically allowed to trade, even the ones that they almost surely won’t.

But first: a caveat.

Players with Full Trade Protection

Yes, I know. Anyone can be traded. But on a team as good as Dallas has been, there is very little incentive for any of the six players below to waive the trade protection they negotiated for themselves in order to depart a team whose stated goal is to win a championship.

So for today’s purposes, we’ll be assuming none of the players with no-move and full no-trade clauses will be part of any such discussions. Those players are, per Puckpedia:

• Mikko Rantanen

• Tyler Seguin

• Roope Hintz

• Matt Duchene

• Miro Heiskanen

• Esa Lindell

We’ll now move onto the players without such full trade protection, at least for the moment. These are not in order of likelihood, or really in any particular order at all, but we’ll start with a very logical name with which to begin.

Jason Robertson

What would precipitate a trade of Robertson is pretty simply this: if he wants more money than the Stars can afford to pay him.

We’ve gone over what that number probably is. And while the Stars probably would look for ways to scrimp and save an extra $500K or so if that really was all that stood between keeping Robertson and having to go find a new version, there’s always the possibility that Robertson is looking for a final figure that Dallas simply cannot offer.

If that turns out to be the case, then Dallas has two options, as far as I can see.

The first option for the Stars is to try to trade Robertson for another established player of roughly approximate value right now: a Brady Tkachuk, Dylan Larkin, William Nylander, or Robert Thomas, for example. The main problem with such a deal is that any team moving a player like that will view their own guy as the more valuable of the two, since moving on from an established player is always a potential disaster if the new guy doesn’t work out. Getting extra assets back in such a trade provides a little bit of insurance. Thus, it’s hard to see any of the above teams being willing to add more pieces to a trade for Robertson, even if it came with an extension. In all likelihood, they’d probably want Dallas to be the one sweetening the pot.

Second, Dallas could try to move Robertson for a package similar to what Carolina got for Mikko Rantanen last year, getting back some draft capital as well as a younger player whose upside could make him a potential Jason Robertson replacement down the line. This is a far riskier strategy for a team as all-in as Dallas, because you’d be banking on whatever player you acquire to almost immediately have a more significant impact than he’s having with his current team.

And besides, what younger player is really out there? Matthew Knies and Mason McTavish, for example, simply aren’t giving you anything close to what Robertson does. It’s just tough to look around the league right now and really find a player that fits the bill for this trade. That’s partly because of how rarely such players get traded, but it’s also due to the plain fact that Robertson’s value around the league simply isn’t as stratospheric as Mikko Rantanen’s was a year ago—even if Dallas fans think it should be.

Jake Oettinger

Did you know Jake Oettinger’s no-move clause doesn’t kick in until July 1 of this year?