Dallas Stars left wing Jason Robertson (21) fights off Minnesota Wild defenseman Brock Faber (7) during the third period in Game 2 of a first-round NHL hockey playoff series at American Airlines Center on Monday, April 20, 2026, in Dallas.
Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News
Jim Nill is paying the price twice these days. He’s paying the price for having signed a superstar player to a very reasonable contract. And he’s paying the price for doing business in the Western Conference of the National Hockey League.
In case you missed it over the weekend, the Dallas Stars nearly sent Jason Robertson, their leading scorer over the last five seasons, to the Seattle Kraken for the seventh overall pick Friday night and several other high picks. It would have made Robertson the second-highest paid player in the league, based on annual average value, but Robertson killed the deal.
Let me type that again, see if makes sense to any of us.
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Jason Robertson — who is not the second-best player on the Stars — could have been the second-highest paid player in the NHL at $15 million a season. And he turned it down. Robertson does not have a no-trade provision, but for Nill to have made that happen, he needed the player to agree to the eight-year, $120 million extension that would have ranked him right behind Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov ($17 million per year).
I’m always baffled at what professional athletes will and won’t do, particularly baseball players that refuse trades to contenders and stick with bad teams. But that’s their choice. In this case, give credit to Robertson for wanting to remain a Dallas Star. Now that gets us to the tricky part for Nill.
At the trade deadline in 2025, the Stars not only got Mikko Rantanen 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 — tied with Winnipeg’s Kyle Conner and Vegas’ Mitch Marner for sixth in AAV — but it’s a very fair deal for Dallas. If you’re Stars management, you don’t want to pay Robertson more than you’re paying Rantanen. If you ask 32 general managers which player they would rather have, Robertson might get a handful of votes.
If you ask me, Rantanen 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’s your call. But he’s not in the top two.
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But players don’t all sign contracts at the same time, so this sort of team disparity happens. The Cowboys would be in similar straits with George Pickens 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’s 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.
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’s 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’m not sure what life Robertson would have been unable to enjoy had he moved to the Pacific Northwest.
Let me say a couple of things about Robertson. He’s 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 NHL. And in the last four years, Robertson has led Dallas in scoring every year but 2025 when he finished two points behind Matt Duchene.
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.
Overall, Robertson is a gifted scorer and nothing more. He’s not going to set a physical tone for his team or be an ace penalty killer. He’s not going to play center and win draws and feed his wingmen. He’s 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.
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Had he accepted the trade and the Seattle money, Robertson would have shot past not just Rantanen but Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon and Vegas’ Jack Eichel and Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl in annual salary. In no one’s rankings or estimation is Robertson better than those players.
You might have noticed that all the players mentioned today play in the Western Conference. Only Toronto’s Auston Matthews ($13.25 million) represents the Eastern Conference among the top annual salaries in the league. That’s another cost Nill is dealing with, and it’s 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.
My guess is that eventually — somewhere around $13 million per season or perhaps a little less — Robertson signs a deal to stay in Dallas. Nill is really good at his job, so that’s in his favor. But the West is pricey and, in a league where players tend to sign really long deals for eight or nine or 10 years, this is Robertson’s moment to cash in. Personally, I would have taken the Seattle money and ran. Then again, I was 45 goals short of Robertson’s total last year.