Dallas is waiting on Jason Robertson, and waiting is the expensive option

Dallas is about to pay the most expensive kind of patience in hockey: waiting on a 45-goal winger who has already proved he'll take a one-year deal to keep his options open.

The Stars want to open extension talks with Jason Robertson around Dec. 1, about a month before he's allowed to sign one on Jan. 1. Jim Nill's reason is the room. "I don't want any distraction," he said, and he wants the team to get off to a good start first. That's a reasonable hockey reason. It's an expensive cap reason.

The number: 294. That's how many shots Robertson put on net last season, per NHL data, up from 211 the year before. His ice time climbed from 17.8 minutes a night to 20.3 over the same stretch, by our count. Dallas gave him more of the puck and he turned it into 45 goals and 96 points. A player whose shot volume jumps 39 percent in a contract year isn't getting cheaper.

Where it stands

Robertson is playing on a one-year, $12 million deal he signed July 21, after filing for arbitration as a restricted free agent. It walks him to unrestricted free agency on July 1, 2027. Before that, the Stars agreed to a sign-and-trade with Seattle for the seventh overall pick, and it died because Robertson wouldn't commit long term to the Kraken. The long-term number floated around that deal was reportedly eight years and $120 million.

So the leverage is already his, because he picked the short deal on purpose and reaches the open market in nine months if nobody blinks.

Contract card: Jason Robertson, DAL

• Term: one year (2026-27), then UFA
• AAV and total: $12 million
• Cap hit share: about 11.5 percent of a $104 million ceiling
• Comparables: Mikko Rantanen ($12 million, signed through 2033), Mitch Marner ($12 million), Leon Draisaitl ($14 million), Kirill Kaprizov ($17 million)
• Verdict: fair for one season, and it ties him with Rantanen for the top cap hit in Dallas. The real price is next year's.

Sign him now / Wait

Sign him now: the ceiling is set to jump to $113.5 million next season, and every UFA comparable will be written against that number. Robertson has led Dallas in goals in four of the last five seasons and hasn't missed a game in four years. A healthy 27-year-old winger with a bigger role is the profile that wins bidding wars, and July is a bidding war Dallas can't control.

Wait: the start has been ordinary. Robertson has two goals and five points in seven games, on 19 shots and 19.6 minutes a night, both down from last season's pace, by our count. He's also third among Stars forwards in ice time, behind Rantanen and Wyatt Johnston. Twenty games is a fair sample. Seven isn't.

My call: sign him in December and stop worrying about the room. Waiting doesn't buy a discount here. The best case for waiting is a slow fall, and a slow fall from a 96-point season still prices him above Rantanen.

The price

My projection, and it's only mine: eight years at $14 million to $15 million. Draisaitl's $14 million is the floor for a top-line winger in his prime. Kaprizov at $17 million is the ceiling Robertson's representatives will point to in every meeting. Against a $113.5 million ceiling, $14.5 million is about 12.8 percent of the cap, a little more than his $12 million eats this season.

The squeeze is the rest of the sheet. Dallas was carrying about $105.4 million against the ceiling in early September, and Tyler Seguin and Lian Bichsel both need new deals next summer. Signing David Perron at $850,000 for one year this week tells you how little room is left at the margins.

What I'd watch

Robertson's own line on timing was that "after the first 20 you can start to reevaluate the season." Dallas will be past Game 20 well before Dec. 1. If he's back near a 40-goal pace by then, Dallas will be negotiating against his best case, not its own. That's the cost of waiting six weeks to save the room a distraction.