Jason Robertson cannot sign a new contract until January of 2027.
But it’s not entirely likely that Robertson, who inked a one-year, $12MM contract to remain with the Stars for the 2026-27 season, will ink a deal right away. According to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic, he guesses that Robertson’s camp might wait until other player contracts are settled with teams so they can evaluate the current state of the market for him.
It was expected by many that the situation of Robertson would be a major storyline over the summer. The Seattle Kraken had nearly landed the player, having made a deal with Dallas that would include an eight-year extension for $125MM, which would make him one of the league’s highest-paid players.
However, Robertson settled with the Stars and both sides ultimately ‘kicked the tires’ for when he will officially become a UFA entering his 28-year-old season, which is surely to be the peak of his prime.
It’s already hard to consider how much the market will change when looking at what transpired this past offseason to get ahead of it. Leo Carlsson received a lucrative offer sheet of five years for $18MM a season from the Philadelphia Flyers, which the Anaheim Ducks matched.
Then came Macklin Celebrini, Connor Bedard, and Cale Makar, whose eight-year, $163.2MM deal reached the highest AAV in NHL history at $20.4MM.
Further to this, Robertson can’t get trade protection into effect on his contract until July 1, 2027. It’s doubtful that a deal of that magnitude would be sent elsewhere but Dallas, to LeBrun’s point, had considered Thomas Harley, who recently extended when Zach Weresnki’s name was swirling in the summer rumors.
So what is Robertson looking to get? The majority of the aforementioned players signed at very young ages and weren’t entirely established based on experience.
He’s proven to be a 100-point player, and Dallas can hope he continues that production into next year, when they’ll have $34MM in cap space, more than enough room to give a worthy extension to their American scoring machine.
LeBrun, however, referred to the fact that there are other contracts to be settled with established NHL veterans. We still don’t know what Quinn Hughes is looking to command for annual salary; there’s an idea it’s around Makar’s paygrade but that has yet to be inked.
Nikita Kucherov won’t be making $9.5MM next year thats for certain. Artturi Lehkonen, Matvei Michkov, and Jack Quinn are all among the top-scoring forwards expected to become free agents this upcoming summer, and based on their point pace, they’ll all want lucrative increases as well.
Robertson himself has five goals for 13 points so far this season, sixth among 2027 free agents. If he were to make himself available to the open market, he would easily become one of the best available.
He has a career-high of 46 goals and 109 points, which comes via a point-per-game scoring clip in every season he’s played, dating back to the 2021-22 campaign. Last season, Robertson nearly matched that career-high, tallying 45 goals and 96 points, as well as five goals and eight points in six playoff games for Dallas.