The Dallas Stars and Jason Robertson came out of trade talks without a scar, and that changes the conversation heading into Friday's opener.
Frank Seravalli reported Tuesday that there doesn't appear to be any lingering damage from those talks. His read leaves the door wide open for a long-term deal in Dallas.
Read that again. A winger whose name was floating around the market is now being framed as a long-term piece, with no grudge left in the locker room.
That doesn't happen often. It's a bit like finding out your partner was pricing apartments across town, then deciding to renew the lease anyway and actually meaning it.
The money is already serious. Robertson carries a $12,000,000 cap hit, the exact number Mikko Rantanen brings to the Dallas books.
Add Thomas Harley at $10,587,500 and Jake Oettinger at $8,250,000. Jim Nill is running a core that costs real money before a new term sheet even lands on the table.
Four Stars already account for $42,837,500 of Jim Nill's cap
Clearing the air is the easy part. Agreeing on a number that sits comfortably beside Rantanen's deal is where these negotiations usually get tense.
Shopping Robertson was a bad idea from the start. You don't move a top-six scorer in his prime unless the return is ridiculous, and those offers almost never show up.
Glen Gulutzan gets one less distraction behind the bench. Trade whispers have a nasty habit of following a winger onto the ice, into the room and onto the power play.
The calendar won't wait for anybody. Dallas hosts St. Louis on Friday, then turns around for a back-to-back in Nashville on Saturday.
Then it's back home to face San Jose on Monday. Three games in four nights is a fast way to find out whether the noise really left no mark.
The Stars at least bring some swagger into it. They've won four straight, capped by a 2-1 decision in Minnesota on September 25, before a single regular-season point is on the board.
Is a quiet negotiation good news, though? Silence can mean progress, or it can mean both sides are just waiting for the other to blink.
Robertson can make his own case starting Friday. Every goal he scores before a signature pushes the price higher, and Nill knows exactly what that does to his cap math.
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Should the Stars pay Jason Robertson whatever it takes to lock him up long term?
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