Monday Rundown: Jason Robertson Talk, Jamie Benn's Value, Tkachuk Fallout, and One Team to Watch
It's been a while since we did this
Welcome to the Monday Rundown! We normally do these in-season, when we have lots of nuggets, quotes, or other bits and bobs from the Stars landscape to share. But given that we’re four days away from the draft, I think today is a good day for going over some offseason trade notes in more of a rundown format.
Before we get to that, I will note that I was in Oklahoma this weekend with some friends, and it was the first real time I’ve spent there since my family drove through the state back in 1999 on a vacation. And I have to say that after spending some time to reflect, I have concluded that Tulsa is nicer than I remember it. I believe this to be a result of three key factors:
Unlike 1999, I actually got out of the car this time, so my opinion of the state was formed by more than just the apparent quality of roadside gas stations
I also didn’t get in trouble on this trip for messing with my sister’s seatbelt in order to make it lock every time she leaned forward
I had good pizza
These are just some of the many helpful travel trips (“HTTs”) you can expect to get from this great travel blog hockey website. Stay tuned for more!
Now, let’s get to the hockey.
Jamie Benn Expected to re-sign for a good value
Pierre LeBrun reported on Friday that Jim Nill will be talking with Jamie Benn after the NHL draft this weekend, but that the “expectation” is that Benn will be back in Dallas next year at a similar $1 million cap base salary with performance incentives for his age-37 season.
You’ve probably already made up your mind about any such deal, but in the broader context of the league, it’s hard to argue with the value Dallas got for their contract last year.
Let’s compare Benn to two of his late-thirties peers for whom defense is also not a strong suit: Evgeni Malkin and Patrick Kane.
Last year, Kane made $3 million in base salary. He collected $3 million of another $4 million in possible performance bonuses, winding up with a total AAV of $6 million. Kane will be 38 in November, and he’s currently headed to free agency. It’s unclear whether he’ll come back for another one-year deal in Detroit for what would be the fourth straight year, or whether he’ll go elsewhere.
In raw counting stats, Kane had 16 goals and 41 assists in 67 games last season. He spent last year on the first power play for Detroit.
Last year, Malkin made $6.1 million in the last year of a four-year deal. He’s already re-signed in Pittsburgh for another year at a $5.5 million base salary with another $3.5 million in possible performance bonuses on top of that, for a possible $9 million in AAV.1
In raw counting stats, Malkin had 19 goals and 42 assists in 56 games last year. He was likewise on Pittsburgh’s top power play unit.
As for Benn, the Stars captain made $1 million in base salary last year, with another $3 million in possible performance bonuses. He achieved $2 million of those by playing 60 games, so he wound up making $3 million last year.
In raw counting stats, Benn had 15 goals and 21 assists last year in 60 games. He was on the second power play unit most of the year, which played less than ever this season.
In that light, a base salary of $1 million with performance bonuses that could roll over to next year’s cap for production like Benn’s really isn’t bad value at all. In terms of $ per point, Benn was in the neighborhood of good-value players like Corey Perry, Michael Bunting, Erik Haula, Jack Roslovic, and Boone Jenner.
Obviously the equation is complicated with Benn for a host of reasons, but there is a valid logic to bringing him back on a deal that works with Dallas’s cap situation—even (especially?) if you’re doing so with the cold heart of an accountant.
Tkachuk, Tkachuk, Goose
The Senators traded Brady Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers for a boatload of draft picks over the weekend. All reporting since that trade has been that the Senators are not rebuilding, and that they are looking to acquire another big player with some of the picks they just, uh, picked up. David Pagnotta thinks their top target is Jason Robertson
That has led to speculation about the Senators’ pursuing Jason Robertson to get back into competitive shape, but I really find it hard to believe that’s a likely outcome. Even if the Stars do end up trading Robertson, his trade value would be at its highest if he’s willing to sign an extension with whatever team acquires him (possible via a sign-and-trade, as Darren Raddysh did with Tampa/Toronto). I simply can’t imagine that Ottawa would be a team at the top of his list, so I have a hard time seeing such a trade materializing.
My read on the situation has always been that the Stars would prefer to re-sign Robertson. The difficulty is that if Robertson doesn’t want to budge from numbers like $14 million or higher, then the Stars would be pretty much unable to keep him without sacrificing players like Mavrik Bourque in addition to two of the Steel/Lyubushkin/Faksa trio. And how much better can you really be if you’re keeping Robertson at the expense of Bourque?
That’s not Robertson’s problem, of course. It’s his prerogative to use his leverage in order to get the deal that he believes to be best for him and his career. If being in Dallas is a priority for him, then maybe we see both sides budge a bit in the coming days.
This is why, as we wrote last week, the Stars probably want to get things nailed down one way or the other going into the draft. Now is the time when teams are looking to Do Big Things, so if you might have to make a Robertson trade, now might be the best window you get to do so.
The biggest difference between Dallas’s situation and Ottawa’s, as I see it, is that Ottawa basically had to trade Tkachuk to his chosen destination. As a very good team in a no-tax state with a healthy culture, the Stars have far more options available to them. That should put them in a position to get a much better outcome than Ottawa did—whether that’s from a new Robertson contract or as the return in a trade package.
Deadlines make deals, and I still think this weekend is a real (if not the ultimate) deadline. We’ll see what happens.
Trade value
Connor Murphy and Jason Dickinson just got $4 million a year for (many) years to stay in Edmonton.
Murphy is 33 years old. Dickinson will be 31 in a few days. The Oilers are obviously not the team setting the bar for shrewd trade maneuvers in 2026, and they certainly seem to have paid no less than market value for two depth players.
Still, I think these deals are instructive. Ilya Lyubushkin’s $3.25 million and Radek Faksa’s two years at $2 million might not seem terribly unappealing with where prices are at right now. Both players are 32 years old, and both are well-known veterans with very positive reputations around the league.
It’s no secret that Dallas will likely need to shed some cap space if they re-sign Robertson, but I do wonder if the new salary cap landscape might make these deals easier to move than we first thought. It’s not hard to see either player being a good Plan B for a team that might not get every player they wanted in free agency. Faksa is a strong faceoff guy who can kill penalties and shut down opposing offense, and Lyubushkin is a right-handed defenseman who can fill a similar depth role on the blue line.
Obviously Dallas still wouldn’t have much leverage in such talks, since they would have the greater need in any deal. But I do think it’s quite possible that the Stars could find their way to clearing some cap room this summer at a lower cost than they paid to deal Matt Dumba last year.
But of course, whether Dallas would even need to pursue such trades depends on what happens with number 21. If they were to end up moving Robertson, then they could probably afford to be much more selective about making any such trade—and would therefore have more leverage in any such talks.
Ben Folds encapsulated this irony best, I think:
When I was broke I needed it more.
But now that I'm rich, they give me [cap space].
Keep an Eye on Anaheim
The Mason McTavish situation in Anaheim is an interesting one to watch, if you’re Dallas. With all of Radko Gudas, John Carlson, and Jacob Trouba headed to free agency, the Ducks also have three more RFA defensemen to sort out.
And while Anaheim has a good chunk of cap space as it stands now, a lot of that will be eaten up when RFAs Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier are signed. That might be one reason why they also appear to be open to moving McTavish. And hey, I can think of one team that would be interested in such a deal.
McTavish is young, signed until 2031, and crucially for Ottawa’s purposes, not American. For a fanbase looking to paper over the Brady-sized hole that got Kool-Aid Manned through the Senators’ dressing room wall over the weekend, McTavish could be one possible solution.
For Dallas’s purposes, I could see Anaheim being one possible trade partner for Lyubushkin, depending on how their blue line shakes out. If they lost both of their Mean Righties in Gudas and Trouba, Lyubushkin would be a less-expensive way to fill such a role with a veteran player.
Another former Duck is Sam Steel, who scored only five fewer goals and three fewer assists than McTavish last season, and who can play either center or left wing, like McTavish. Steel is also in the final year of a $2.1 million deal.
I’m just throwing darts here, but depending on how things shake out over the next couple of days, Anaheim seems like a not-unlikely trade partner for Dallas, if Pat Verbeek is looking to fill out some roles with veterans the team knows.
Anaheim is also, for obvious reasons, a team people like to discuss as a potential Jason Robertson trade partner. I’m not quite to the point where I think such a deal is going to happen, but if that were to be happening behind the scenes, McTavish would be a logical piece to be at least one part of any such deal between the teams. That still doesn’t seem like the most likely outcome to me, but with Anaheim looking ready to start throwing their weight around in a weak Pacific Division, it wouldn’t shock me one bit to see them making some big moves over the next few days.
Per PuckPedia, Malkin’s bonus structure is thus: $250K after 42 GP; $250K after 63 GP; $1M for making playoffs; $500K for each playoff round won.