The Dallas Stars and star winger Jason Robertson on Tuesday avoided arbitration in agreeing to a one year, $12 million contract. The signing took Robertson off the trade market for now and at least cools the situation between the two sides for the next five to six months as Robertson is not eligible to sign an extension until January 1, 2027. A pending UFA on July 1, the next real deadline between the two sides will be the March 1st trade deadline where it’s going to be decision time for a team with Stanley Cup aspirations if there’s no new extension inked. The Robertson saga in Dallas has had its share of twists and turns, where a day before the draft Dallas agreed to a trade with Seattle only for Robertson to turn down an 8 year, $125 million extension from the Kraken. St. Louis also came to the table Dallas was willing to accept with a similar significant futures package and it was another trade scenario the Robertson camp led by agent Andy Scott squashed. That brings us to the Pittsburgh.

After the failed Kraken and Blues trades, Pittsburgh who was waiting in the wings for months on the Robertson front, came into play on the morning of Day 2 of the draft with a serious play for Robertson that mirrored the similar heavy futures offers Dallas was willing to accept from Seattle and St. Louis. All these speculated trade offers with a Bryan Rust, Rickard Rakell or Erik Karlsson involved is not accurate. Dallas had no interest in Pittsburgh’s older guard of core players and none of the three were going to be involved. In fact, the likes of Erik Karlsson have been involved with off-season discussions, like a Sidney Crosby normally is when it comes to communication with the management team on throwing around ideas. Take that for it’s worth.

Among the rumblings in league circles, (pending an extension of course), key details of Pittsburgh’s offer included To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”! Sam To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”! There was certainly a short period just prior to the second round of the NHL Entry draft starting where talks are said to have gotten quite serious and significant enough where at least a few teams in the Eastern Conference believed it was going to get over the finish line. For whatever reason, it didn’t come to fruition and over the coming weeks trade talks never reignited to that point again. But, what was different with the other teams involved earlier in the process who were rejected immediately, Pittsburgh was never a full-out ‘No’ by Robertson. However, they were also not a team he was willing to sign a long-term extension with this summer or immediately. Sources say Robertson was willing to go to Pittsburgh via trade, albeit without an extension and essentially see how the situation goes like he is operating To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”! Pittsburgh had become aware of that over the last couple weeks, though, behind the scenes they kept trying to lay the groundwork to become a ‘long-term’ destination city for Robertson and Dallas is believed to have had Pittsburgh circled as team they could likely circle back too if things got ugly, though, that was never the expectation it was really going to get to an arbitration case. If the two sides had reignited talks, it’s believed framework of deal would have been a bit different than around the drat.

The million-dollar question now is whether the door opens back up 6-7 months from now or did Pittsburgh miss their shot?

The Penguins strongly deny this, but you can’t kid anybody it wasn’t coincidence they acquired Nick Robertson whom they’ve had multiple opportunities to acquire dating back to last summer, just happens the day after you tried acquiring Jason in a blockbuster deal. Who knows where the Robertson/Dallas situation stands by the winter or next summer as there continues to be great mystery around the league of what his long-term intentions are for a player who is not a true superstar level player and has questions from evaluators of how his game will age. Some say despite the hard ball negotiation play by the Robertson camp, at the end of the day it’s eventually going to be a hard sell for him to not sign long-term in Dallas; Others say he’s intrigued about coming East with Washington, Philadelphia and the New York Rangers teams pegged by his camp who weren’t players for him this summer via trade, but are three specific clubs they believe To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!

While a small crowd in the organization still believes as many doubles and triples Kyle Dubas has hit in the last 12-15 months, botching the Jake Guentzel situation still haunts the club in trying to maximize the Sidney Crosby window with a retool/semi rebuild. Finding a Jake Guentzel who can get you 80+ points on the market and wanted to be here, is going to cost you multiple assets and $14-$15 million a year as the Penguins, are learning first-hand. More of the issue back to the 2024 trade deadline is a feeling from some in the Penguins organization that the new regime at the time didn’t sell Guentzel as a true star level player on the trade market and were comfortable and even ecstatic To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!

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