The Minnesota Wild may not have to wait long to find out whether Jason Robertson is part of a problem they’ll be dealing with for years.
Dallas locked up the winger on a one-year, $12 million deal before his arbitration hearing set for July 25, but that agreement only pushed the bigger question down the road. Robertson is now set to hit free agency after the upcoming season, and that leaves the Stars staring at another major contract decision.
For Minnesota, that matters. The Wild are still expected to be one of the Central Division teams in the mix for a Stanley Cup run, and Dallas remains in that same conversation even after a quiet offseason.
The Stars’ biggest move was trading Mavrik Bourque to the Nashville Predators because they didn’t have enough cap space to sign him to an extension. Keeping Robertson in the fold was the priority.
Stars general manager Jim Nill made it clear on Wednesday that Dallas still wants this to end with Robertson staying put.
“That’s our plan. Yes,” Nill said, h/t TSN.
“And like I said, a lot of things happen, but that that is our plan. We discussed that.”
That doesn’t guarantee anything, though. Robertson already turned down trades to the St.
Louis Blues and Seattle Kraken, and he also passed on an eight-year, $15 million-a-year contract offer in a potential sign-and-trade with Seattle. The sides eventually landed on the short-term deal, but the long-term picture is still wide open.
The Stars should have room to work with next summer. According to PuckPedia, they’re projected to have more than $41 million in cap space entering the next offseason, helped in large part by Tyler Seguin’s contract coming off the books. That gives Dallas a path to keep Robertson if both sides want to make it happen.
But the market for top young talent keeps climbing, and Robertson’s next number may not be easy to pin down. Anaheim Ducks center Leo Carlsson is making $18 million per year, the highest-paid player in the league.
Wild winger Kirill Kaprizov set the bar for forwards and wingers at $17 million per year on his new deal, which begins this upcoming season. Connor Bedard also landed a five-year, $75 million extension from the Chicago Blackhawks.
With the salary cap rising, the price tag for young stars is rising right along with it.
And Dallas still has to play the season first. If the Stars take another early playoff exit, maybe even at the hands of the Wild, that could change the tone around Robertson’s future. If things go badly enough, he could even come up in trade talk at the deadline.
For now, the Stars say they want him around for the long haul. For the Wild, that’s exactly the kind of uncertainty worth watching.
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