Is Jason Robertson's contract ask fair? Tom Gaglardi weighs in
Dallas Stars are probably not rich enough to buy cheap stuff. They need to invest in quality. Luckily, Jason Robertson is just that.
Thanks to the Tom Gaglardi interview on the Cam & Strick podcast last week, we now have a pretty good idea of what the contractual expectations of Jason Robertson’s camp are.
He mentioned a certain 40-goal scorer who is now coming into his only second contract and is already asking for a 7 million on a bridge deal. Add to that, if Stars camp wants to lock him up long-term, it will be even more than that.
Well, duh.
Goals are at a premium and it should be especially applied for an offense-strapped team like the Stars were for the past couple of seasons, or even more. Robertson has managed to score at a 0.98 ppg pace throughout his whole NHL career, which is now 128 regular season games.
That scoring pace is literally almost unheard of and what’s actually good for the Stars is that if you combine other metrics to the overall performance equation, he’s already one of the best players in the league. Not a bad achievement for a second round pick, right?
So, why wouldn’t you want to extend this type of a player for your time like, yesterday?
That’s a trick question, because obviously, Stars want to extend him, just not at the rate he probably deserves. One of the reasons for that is what I called “typical old-time hockey thinking” which is pretty evident if you listen to that Tom Gaglardi’s podcast episode.
He outlines how he doesn’t like those new types of deals for young stars and that it should be the third contract when the player makes actual big money and not the second one. It’s funny, because when that happened to Seguin and Benn, we are here to witness at least one rant per year of how they don’t deserve those contracts.
But his main point was how big deals for young players squeeze those veteran players in the mushy middle who now instead of making 2 or 3 million dollars have to be accommodated with close to league minimum deals.
From a personal perspective, I get it. Those young stars are almost guaranteed to make big money once again and the role players have a lesser piece of the pie, especially in a cap world. So why shouldn’t the stars act less greedy and let those veterans in the middle make some money as well?
Because it’s not how the world works and it’s not how you build a winning roster, either. I’ve beaten this drum for a long time. You need to live with the Jamie Benn contract now, because at the point of its signing it was a slam-dunk deal. Same goes for Tyler Seguin.
What you need to be a little wary of is those middle contracts for veteran players that actually are not worth that much and you’re paying more for what the guy has already done in his career than what he can actually do for you. Remember Martin Hanzal?
Those types of contracts have multiple players on the Stars roster. Radek Faksa, Ryan Suter and Anton Khudobin currently count against the cap with more than 10 million price tag altogether. That’s another Jamie Benn, even if you bury Khudobin in the minors.
Or, if you want to put salt in the wound, that’s John Klingberg and you’re still left with 3 million extra. Did you notice how Paul Stastny signed with Carolina at 1.5 million AAV? That’s the current trend of contract negotiations when the salary cap is almost flat.
Young stars are paid almost accurately to what they are bringing to the team and it’s the older guys who are more likely to be now underpaid, as opposed to what it was in pre-covid years. Bottom line is, in hockey, almost every star is also a bit underpaid.
So what is an accurate payday for Jason Robertson?
Well, his contract projection from Evolving Hockey looks like this.
The most likely contract according to Evolving Hockey is 6 years at 7.9 million AAV.
It’s worthy to note that they project the contract not only through the eyes of Robertson’s on-ice production but also taking in mind possible contract comparables and overall trends in the NHL. It’s not what his accurate remuneration is, it’s a mere projection of what it will be.
If we were to apply only his on-ice metrics, his actual remuneration would be close to 14 million dollars in AAV. Fortunately for the Stars, that’s only the market value by The Athletic and not a negotiation stick, because Connor McDavid would need to earn around 20 million in AAV and that’s not even legal under the current CBA.
My projection of Jason Robertson’s next deal has been 7 years at 7.857 million in AAV, which is definitely way below his market value but still pretty hefty in Tom Gaglardi’s eyes. It’s very probable that the deal will end up in a high 8 million area if Robertson is indeed to sign a long-term contract.
This deal is more of a team-friendly contract, the exact type of what the Dallas Stars are trying to push for while still having a space for Robertson to cash in when he will be 30 years old.
When you look at the projection chart once again, you’ll see that at 8 years, Robertson is projected to earn almost 9 million dollars in the AAV – almost the exact cap hit of one Kirill Kaprizon and that’s probably the ceiling for the team.
It’s also the comparable deal that Robertson’s agent is probably using during the negotiations. Kaprizov signed a deal worth 9 million in AAV but only for 5 years. He’s a bit older than Robertson but his overall impact is even better.
I probably wouldn't expect Robertson to get to the 9 million barrier, or particularly close for that matter, but he would certainly deserve it.
What comes to the equation and makes the negotiations so hard is the cap. The estimation of what the Stars can actually offer to Robertson and still stay below the ceiling has been oscillating between 6.3 million at the lowest and 8 million at the highest. So what is it?
Well, it all depends on various roster decisions prior to the opening night roster and whether they go the 23-players or 22-players route. They could potentially go even less, but that means risk of losing some fringe guys like Studenic or Kiviranta on waivers.
23-man roster includes these players and also Jason Robertson:
Forwards (14): Robertson, Hintz, Pavelski, Benn, Seguin, Marchment, Gurianov, Faksa, Dellandrea, Peterson, Kiviranta, Glendening, Studenic, JohnstonDefensemen (7): Heiskanen, Lindell, Suter, Hakanpaa, Harley, Miller, Hanley
Goalies (2): Oettinger, Wedgewood
The most probable scenarios:
Stars go with 23-man roster
Wyatt Johnston makes the team
Anton Khudobin is buried in the AHL
Their cap space to re-sign Robertson is then: $7,203,334
Stars go with 23-man roster
Wyatt Johnston makes the team
Anton Khudobin is traded away (or put in LTIR - not ideal)
Their cap space to re-sign Robertson is then: $9,411,667
Stars go with 22-man roster
Wyatt Johnston doesn’t make the team
Anton Khudobin is buried in the AHL
(If he’s traded away, the cap space rises by $2.208M)
Their cap space to re-sign Robertson is then: $8,097,501 (or potentially $10,305,834)
You can see that while the lowest amount is probably higher than reported 6.3 million by Cap Friendly, it’s still not that high – as it’s a smidge over 7.2 million dollars. But that’s the case where nobody gets traded and the Stars go with a full 23 man roster for the opening night.
If they decide to waive a guy like Studenic or Kiviranta and go with a 22-man roster, suddenly the space is 7.95 or 8.25 million respectively.
Another way is to trade Anton Khudobin away and essentially pay for the cap space, which could then rise to almost 9.5 million. That should have been the Stars goal throughout the whole summer but they weren’t able to capitalize on that.
But keep your eyes on a possible Khudobin deal, possibly at the end of September, when some injuries may happen in other teams and suddenly they find themselves in a situation of an immediate need. Maybe that’s what the Stars are banking on and playing this waiting game for. In an ideal scenario, a young player (or two) assert himself in the training camp and the Stars find themselves in a position where they can package a guy like Riley Tufte or Joel Kiviranta in a Khudobin deal and not pay premium pick to other team just to create cap space.
Good news is, we’re officially in a training camp month and the answers are coming. We just need to wait a bit more to see how it all unfolds with Jason Robertson and how it affects other dominos on the Stars roster.
His contract ask is definitely more than fair but considering the current state of the affairs in Dallas as well as cap layering from Jim Nill, don’t be surprised if they come to the middle ground compromise of exactly what Evolving Hockey projected back in May this year.
That being a 5 or 6 year deal worth from 7 to 8 million dollars. Not ideal for any side at this moment but nevertheless an option they both can agree with. Team will probably push for more years as opposed to the player’s agent while the player needs to take care of himself as well and try to maximize the value.
That’s why it was very interesting to hear Tom Gaglardi’s idea of capping the maximum number of years from 8 to 4 for the players. While I may agree to some point, that could definitely be handy when it comes to extensions of 29-30 year olds, but less so now.
Jason Robertson’s deal is a situation, where you can actually save a lot of money if you extend him long-term, even at 9 or 9.5 million dollars in AAV. In Slovakia (and maybe in other countries as well), there is a saying: “We’re not that rich to buy cheap things.”
What it means is that rather than buying a middling coffee-maker or some kitchen accessory for a cheap price, rather invest in a great-quality thing, because there are chances it will last longer, therefore saving you money if the low-quality buy folds or breaks.
The same should be applied for Robertson. Rather than risking another contractual pat situation in 3 years, invest now and reap rewards later, when Otters (see what I did there?) deal with the bridge deals. And make ways to do that, if needed.
He’s definitely worth it.