Seven Jason Robertson trade scenarios but they get increasingly less realistic

Can Dallas even win a Jason Robertson trade? No. But what would it look like if they could?

Elliotte Friedman. Jeff Marek. David Pagnotta. Frank Seravalli. The insiders have spoken. “Jason Robertson could be moved,” they’ve all said.

I’m not interested in the why. And I’m not going to talk about their comments. Only Marek’s suggestion that Dallas might be interested in trading Robertson to recuperate draft capital warrants inspection, but even then — because media literacy is not my strong suit, I’ll step aside for a different exercise. I just want to answer a simple question. Can Dallas win a trade involving Robertson?

Since Robertson entered the NHL full-time (2020-2021), he’s 13th in points among forwards with 392. That’s above names like William Nylander ($11.5 million per year), Kirill Kaprizov ($9 million per), and Jake Guentzel ($9 million AAV). Outside of Mikko Rantanen, that is well ahead of the victory green pack in terms of production.

But what about value? We all know Robertson is elite. But what is that eliteness worth over the course of a season? At 2.7 Wins Above Replacement, Robertson was worth an extra five points in the standings, meaning two things: 1) without him Colorado probably has home-ice advantage against Dallas and 2) a non-zero chance that Winnipeg plays Dallas in the first round instead. Whichever way you slice it, losing five points in the standings turns the Stars into more of a bubble playoff team than a Cup favorite; at least as a matter of mathematical approximation.

So whatever happens, you’re not winning this trade.

Recency bias is a hell of a drug. If it weren’t for the end-of-year injury, I suspect fans would have a different assessment of Robertson. After all, in the previous two postseasons, he was almost a point-per-game player. However that production was divided, it was there and it was earned (does Mikko Rantanen’s playoff point totals look bad because they were all in the first two rounds instead of the third?). And that’s to say nothing of his defensive value, which I feel gets taken for granted. I’m writing about this because no amount of copium can ignore the truth: Robertson is an elite player on both sides of the puck. Losing Robertson would create a ripple effect across the lineup that would be felt in ways both obvious (less goals and in-zone possession), and subtle (less passes on the rush and zone exits).

But this is all about whether Dallas can get ahead. The template is already there: Matthew Tkachuk for Jonathan Huberdeau and McKenzie Weegar. That was obviously a great trade for Florida. But it’s revisionist history to say that it was awful for Calgary at the time. If Calgary had better support for those two, how would we deem that trade? Many of these trade scenarios will be inspired by that template, although not all. Shoutout to Evolving-Hockey’s contract projections (which are scarily accurate), Jack Fraser’s hockey cards, Louis Boulet’s roster builder, and of course, PuckPedia.

Programing note: I normally don’t reserve writing like this for paid subscribers. But I also don’t want paywalled articles to always be grimdark and serious. In addition (beyond wanting to write more for paid subscribers), this took a lot longer than I thought. While there is an element of fun in these, I ended up digging into the math of the contracts and the fancy stats of the players more than I expected. Just saying. I think the cup of coffee you buy me for this morning reading will be worth it. But more importantly: you will come to see things my way…