DALLAS — As far as consolation prizes go, you can do a lot worse than a vacation in the Cayman Islands. And don’t get him wrong, Jason Robertson embraced the mental and physical break from the unrelenting grind of the NHL season.
Still, let’s be real: The Dallas Stars winger wanted ice, not sand. He wanted to be choking down those viscous postgame protein shakes, not nursing Mudslides and Swankys. He wanted the cool drizzle of Milan, not the blazing sun of the Caribbean.
But the NHL’s leading American scorer didn’t make the American Olympic team.
So he didn’t really watch those who did.
“No, I didn’t watch much,” Robertson told The Athletic on the eve of Game 1 of the Stars’ first-round series against the Minnesota Wild. “Just watched some of the knockout games. It’s hard. The round-robin (games) are against random countries, and they weren’t even close. The (start) times are poor, the games weren’t close — and they didn’t matter, either, because every team made it to knockouts. I caught some of the semis and the final, but that’s really it.”
Even the much-ballyhooed gold-medal game between the United States and Canada barely caught Robertson’s attention. He only tuned in for the third period and Jack Hughes’ golden goal in overtime. Robertson has worn the Team USA sweater before, at the World Juniors and the World Championship. He had a buddy, Jake Oettinger, on Team USA, and another, Thomas Harley, on Team Canada. And his boss, Stars general manager Jim Nill, was part of Canada’s management group. If he wanted a reason to get emotionally invested, to really root, he could have found one.
But the truth is, Robertson didn’t feel much.
“Just watching hockey,” he said with a shrug.
If there’s a lingering bitterness there, Robertson doesn’t show it. He said he had nothing but respect for everyone who participated in the Olympics and was happy for the Americans who won. Yes, he wanted to play. Yes, he was disappointed he wasn’t picked. But he was frankly more bothered — and motivated — by being left off the American team for the 4 Nations Face-Off a year earlier, because he knew it was his own fault as he sputtered through a middling (by his lofty standards, at least) season.
This season? As he tore up the league and his reputation? Nah. Robertson did everything he possibly could to make that team.
“Obviously, I wanted to make it,” he said. “And I thought I played well enough to make it. But they picked their guys, and that was their choice.”
The dramatists in the hockey world might want to see Robertson score a dramatic goal in this first-round series, stand at center ice, and point — or, uh, make some other gesture — at the press box, where Bill Guerin will be watching. Guerin, of course, is the general manager of both the Wild and Team USA. And Robertson facing off against the man who so publicly snubbed him is a story that’s too good to resist.
Robertson laughed loudly when the idea was suggested to him following Friday’s practice at American Airlines Center, but quickly shot it down. He’s playing the Wild, not Guerin. And he’s playing for the Stanley Cup, not for pride or revenge or anything that melodramatic.
“No, I just want to play,” he said. “I want to play hard, and I want to do what I’ve been doing all regular season now — play with emotion. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing against in the playoffs — it’s always going to be emotional; it’s always going to be tough.”
The lead-up to the announcement of Team USA’s roster in January turned into a referendum on Robertson’s quality as a player. The laid-back Californian with a big smile and a big personality burst onto the scene in 2021-22, his first full NHL season, with 41 goals. He followed that up the next season with an even bigger season, 46 goals and 109 points. Robertson seemed destined for superstardom, to be one of the new faces of the NHL.
But the past two seasons were merely very good, not great. He had 29 goals and 80 points in 2023-24, and 35 and 80 in 2024-25. He missed the first round of the playoffs with an injury last spring and wasn’t quite himself when he returned. The Stars’ offense dried up in the conference final, as it did the year before and the year before that. And so the narrative changed.
Robertson, the conventional wisdom went, was a little too soft. A little too slow. He didn’t work hard enough on defense, and he didn’t have the toughness to be the elite power forward so many thought he’d be. Guerin clearly thought so. And he was far from alone. As the Robertson snub became more and more likely, the talk surrounding him was increasingly negative — even as he put up 23 goals and 23 assists by New Year’s Day.
“You definitely hear it,” Robertson said. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hear it. But we’re professionals. It doesn’t matter. All that really matters is the opinions of everyone in this organization, and your family (and friends). They know what I’m capable of.”
Even Stars coach Glen Gulutzan came to Dallas with his own preconceived notion of Robertson’s game. Didn’t skate hard enough. Wasn’t strong enough on the puck. Wasn’t physical enough.
That’s not the Robertson he saw up close, though.
“It’s off,” Gulutzan said. “It’s off, for sure. Even for me, coming in. This is an elite player in our league. Once you coach him, you appreciate more what he can do. The perception definitely is off.”
At least, it is now. Robertson has rewritten his own narrative, finishing the season with 45 goals and 51 assists, having played in all 82 games for the fourth straight season. And he did it by skating harder. By being stronger on the puck. By being more physical. He combined the skill he showed in his first two full seasons with the tenacity that was lacking in the past two.
Basically, he set up shop in the opponent’s crease on opening night and never left.
In 2023-24, Robertson had 78 shots on goal from the goalmouth — that includes the front of the crease, the crease itself and the corners of the crease — and scored on 17 of them. Last season, he had 78 shots from the goalmouth (identical to the previous season) and scored on 22 of them.
This season? Robertson had 130 shots from the goalmouth, scoring on 28 of them.
“It feels good, it’s where I wanted to get back to,” he said. “I’m doing things this season that I haven’t really done ever in my career. A lot of it is just moving my feet more. With the puck, without the puck, beating guys to the net, getting closer to the net to shoot pucks instead of just firing from distance — a lot of that is just moving your feet. They’re tighter (goals), more inside. That’s what moving your feet is, getting into the interior, beating your guy up the ice, getting inside ice off the rush. That’s stuff I wanted to really try to focus on this year, and it’s worked out well.”
The Stars had 3.13 goals per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 with Jason Robertson (left) on the ice. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
It certainly worked out well in the regular season, as Dallas finished with the second-best record in the league, only behind the division rival (and potential second-round foe) Colorado Avalanche. But more importantly, it should work in the playoffs, too. Because those are postseason goals — ugly, greasy whacks around the net, knocking in rebounds, posting up on the doorstep and having a puck bounce in off of you.
With Mikko Rantanen doing that on the top line and Robertson doing that on the second line, the Stars are a nightmare matchup for any team — even one with Quinn Hughes, Brock Faber, Jonas Brodin and Jared Spurgeon on the back end.
“A lot of goals are scored in front of the net,” Rantanen said. “That’s the thing with the playoffs, so we’ll try to get there as much as we can.”
That Robertson put together this monster season in a contract year isn’t lost on him. If Nill wants to keep Robertson in the fold and keep together this core that has been to the Western Conference final three years straight (and counting?), it’s going to cost him. Rantanen signed for eight years at $12 million per season after the Stars acquired him last season, and Robertson figures to be in the same ballpark — if not higher, given the ever-rising salary cap.
It’s why Robertson’s name has popped up in idle trade speculation. After all, it’s not often that 26-year-old three-time 40-goal scorers could be available. The Stars could replenish their draft and prospect pools after years of win-now trades by dangling Robertson’s rights — he’s still a restricted free agent — to a rebuilding team looking to turn the corner or a retooling team looking to get back on top in a hurry. It’s been a topic of conversation in barrooms and on podcasts all season.
But Robertson is proud of himself for how little he’s dwelt on his future this season, how he didn’t let the uncertainty weigh on him. He insists he hasn’t really thought much about it at all.
“We’re just focused on winning here, right now,” he said. “It’s the playoffs. You try to have a hell of a playoffs and then see where it goes. You just go out and play and don’t think about it.”
Don’t think about the contract. Don’t think about the future. Don’t think about the Olympics. Robertson is living in the now, not the near future and not the near past. And the now? Well, the now feels pretty good.
“It’s been a great year,” he said. “I’m really happy with my game. I’m looking forward to trying to show it off in the playoffs.”
No matter who’s upstairs watching.