There have been Jason Robertson trade rumors going around the NHL the last couple of weeks. The speculation has come after the Dallas Stars fired Head Coach Pete Deboer and lost their third straight Conference Finals to the Edmonton Oilers. The rumors about Jason Robertson being moved have been all speculation, but should NHL fans believe in them?
Jeff Marek of Daily Faceoff wrote about his thoughts on Robertson being moved in a column of his “The Sheet Blog.” Marek speculated that the Stars could move Robertson to free up cap space to get a big free agent this summer, like Aaron Ekblad that would make the Star’s defense team elite. The column was written before the Stars fired Deboer, which is notable.
Marek is a very big voice in the hockey world, and while he does throw stuff at the wall at times, it’s worth listening to what he has to say. The question is, why would the Stars do a Jason Robertson trade?
Robertson has one more year left on his contract at $7.75 million and is due for a big raise. The game plan for the Stars, if Robertson was moved, would be to bring back one or both of Jamie Benn or Mikael Granlund. This doesn’t seem necessary. It would arguably make the Stars worse.
Jason Robertson is 25 years old and is a two-time 40-goal scorer. He has scored more than 25 goals in four straight seasons. That is the type of player that the Dallas Stars cannot afford to let go. The Stars need to pay Robertson what he wants. They need to get it done soon, even if it means parting ways with Jamie Benn or some of Dallas’s pending unrestricted free agents that they’d love to keep.
Jamie Benn is a Dallas Stars legend and will go down as one of the best Dallas Stars players ever. But he shouldn’t be the reason the Stars don’t resign one of their franchise players. The Stars could even trade someone else from their roster to free up cap space and get Robertson signed while also keeping Benn.
Doing a Jason Robertson trade would be a mistake for the Dallas Stars, especially if their motivation would be to resign their other unrestricted free agents. There’s a way they could keep Jamie Benn without having to do a Jason Robertson trade.
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