Dallas Stars left wing Jason Robertson, left, and Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon battle for the puck in Denver, on May 17.David Zalubowski/The Associated Press
Two years ago, the Dallas Stars got into a contract wrangle with their most promising player.
Jason Robertson wasn’t highly rated going into his draft year. He was picked 39th overall. He hardly played in his rookie season. But by Year 3, he had star quality, scoring 41 goals. Time for him to cash in in restricted free agency.
The usual way of doing things had evolved from bridge contracts that locked a player up only until he reached unrestricted status to longer deals that guaranteed more years and more money. The standoff stretched over the summer and into training camp. Most assumed Robertson would win this fight.
In 2018, William Nylander, who was a restricted free agent, stared down the Maple Leafs until he got what he wanted – six years and US$42-million. The dispute was daily news in Toronto for months. Reporters followed Nylander back to Sweden to see what was going on. Leafs management spent the entire time tilted backward.
In Dallas, the local sports hierarchy goes like this – Cowboys, Cowboys, Cowboys, Mavericks, Rangers and then Stars. There was no panic to re-sign the team’s top scorer, who wasn’t going anywhere anyway. No one followed anyone home to doorstep them.
Robertson blinked on the last day of training camp. He took a four-year US$31-million deal and pronounced himself “relieved.” He was a first-team all-star last year.
This is why the Stars start the NHL’s Western Conference final tomorrow as favourites, and why the Leafs are trying to convince people that next year is their year. Or maybe the year after.
Scouting is part of the Stars’ secret formula. Dallas has had one top-10 pick in the past decade. Toronto’s had three. Which of the two rosters would you rather have right now?
Expectations are part of it. Rick Bowness took the Stars to a Stanley Cup final in 2020 in his first year as head coach. When he couldn’t follow that success up he was let go a couple of years later.
Tactics, goaltending, special teams – all part of it.
But mostly what it is is cap management. The Dallas Stars do not overpay their veterans, and expect major contributions from low-cost newcomers. The employee roll is balanced between those who’ve earned a lot, those who are on their way there and those who still have to prove themselves. There is no confusion among these groups.
The current poster child for this approach is Wyatt Johnston.
Johnston was a draft flyer, even with the 23rd pick. He’d stopped playing for a full year during the pandemic. But, as good franchises are supposed to, the Stars saw past his inexperience. Now 21, Johnston has been a monster in these playoffs. He’s the sort of young player who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and doesn’t care. When was the last time the Leafs discovered someone like that?
Johnston is making less than a million bucks this year, and the same amount next year. In two years, he’ll be playing for Canada in Milan and everyone will be wondering how they missed out on this guy.
Johnston and his teammates are on a payroll assembly line. When Johnston is ready for his big payday, current high earners such as Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn will be long gone.
By then, it will be past time to have found the next Johnstons. None of this works if there aren’t constant infusions of young, high-end workers willing to wait for their jackpot. The waiting is key.
Toronto can’t convince people to wait because everyone in the city won’t shut up about how indispensable the Leafs are.
If you’re Robertson, and you drop out of the news for weeks at a time, you are motivated to settle. If you are Nylander, and all the papers are wondering if the GM should be fired because he can’t arm-wrestle you into submission, you aren’t going to budge.
In other markets, this effect begins once a team has achieved something. The Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning are currently experiencing the downside to winning a Stanley Cup – everyone’s got their hand out.
Those teams are now in the same predicament as the Leafs – unable to supply enough cheap, new talent to offset the giganto-contracts on top.
Dynasties don’t end because the stars get old. They end because the stars suck up all the resources and everyone else starves. But they did get to win first.
The Dallas-Edmonton conference final is a clash of philosophies as well as a hockey matchup.
Edmonton’s got a bunch of top-end talent making big money. Unlike the Leafs or Lightning, they also produce. But there are only so many of them. If you shut down one Oilers’ forward group, you have shut down the entire pipeline.
Dallas comes at you in waves of quality, its top line – Robertson, Johnston and Logan Stankoven – makes less combined than John Tavares.
If Edmonton wins, it’s an endorsement of the star system. As in, luck into a couple of huge stars and pay them what they want.
If Dallas wins – and it probably will – it’s a more nuanced lesson. Find several averagely great players, none of whom are in the position to cripple you with salary demands, and then pay them slightly under the going rate.
You can only play it that way in a secondary hockey market. Places where the pressure to win right now is light, where agents can’t leverage performance panic and where the salary cap isn’t an anvil hung around the franchise’s neck. Places that aren’t in Canada.
Hockey loves a simple mantra for building a winner. How about this one – the more ice rinks there are in your city, the less likely you are to win a Stanley Cup.