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‘A natural scorer’: Stars’ Jason Robertson is having an all-time underrated season

The start of Robertson’s career is one of the best in history.

We are not talking enough about Jason Robertson.

Robertson’s presence as a scorer for the Stars has become a constant this season. He’s consistently been one of the best players for Dallas. He is a key part of the top line that has dragged the Stars into playoff contention in the final fortnight of the campaign.

Most of it is taken for granted.

Robertson led the Stars to a point during Thursday night’s 3-2 overtime loss to Minnesota, scoring both of Dallas’ goals. Robertson now has 36 goals this season to lead the Stars and he entered Friday ranked 15th in goal-scoring in the NHL.

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“Sometimes, you get hidden here in Dallas, Texas,” Stars forward Tyler Seguin said earlier this week. “Sometimes, that’s great because you can hide a guy like Miro Heiskanen for a few years. You can hide a Robertson.

“His goal-scoring abilities are top notch. His ability to slow plays down and having that big opportunity, but being able to slow it down, judge it all in that split-second is what makes him a gifted goal scorer and he’s consistent with it.”

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Robertson is quietly amid one of the best seasons in Stars history and one of the best starts to a career in NHL history.

— He is four goals away from notching 40 goals in a season, which has only been done by three other players in Dallas Stars history: Mike Modano, Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin.

— He is 10 points away from hitting 80 points, which has only been done by six Dallas Stars: Modano, Benn, Seguin, Russ Courtnall, Mike Ribeiro, Brad Richards.

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— Robertson is currently at 116 points in his first 120 NHL games during his first three seasons (he played three games with Dallas in 2019-20 but still retained his rookie status last year). If he is able to average more than a point per game in his first three seasons, he would join a select group of players.

Since the lockout in 2004-05, seven players NHL players have averaged a point per game in their first three seasons. It’s a list filled with future Hall of Famers and current budding superstars: Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Connor McDavid, Kirill Kaprizov and Cale Makar.

This says nothing of Robertson’s value to the Stars, who enter Saturday tied with Nashville for the first Wild Card spot in the Western Conference. Dallas is two points up on Vegas for the second Wild Card spot with one game in hand on the Golden Knights.

In order to reach a comfortable 97 points, the Stars would have to go 4-4-0 in their final eight games. To reach that threshold, the Golden Knights would have to go 5-2-0; the Kings, 4-1-1.

They are in this position thanks to a monster year from Robertson.

Consider that the Stars are 20th in the league in goals per game and 24th in 5-on-5 goal-scoring. Then evaluating Robertson’s season becomes even more impressive.

Robertson has scored 16.9% of the Stars’ goals this season, which is the fifth-highest mark among teams currently in a playoff spot. Three of those teams above Dallas employ 50-goal scorers (Chris Kreider in New York, Leon Draisaitl in Edmonton and Auston Matthews in Toronto), and the other ices arguably the best goal-scorer of all time in Ovechkin.

In terms of generating offense, there are very few players better than Robertson.

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Natural Stat Trick is an advanced statistics site that tracks (among other things) how teams perform with and without a player on the ice. Relative stats help evaluate player performance given the context of his team.

For example, the Stars score 2.18 more goals per 60 minutes at 5 on 5 with Robertson on the ice versus when he is off the ice. That figure is the fifth-best number in the league. They generate 12.72 more scoring chances per 60 minutes and 5.85 more high-danger chances per 60 minutes with him on the ice, both second in the league among forwards.

Robertson also ranks in the top 10 in relative shot attempts for, shot for and expected goals for. The only other forward this season in the top 10 in all six categories is San Jose’s Timo Meier.

Then there’s the contract.

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Robertson is on the final year of his entry-level contract, one that carries a $795,000 cap hit and makes Robertson the best deal in the sport. Each point by Robertson this season has cost $12,619 and each goal has cost $24,843, both the cheapest figures in the league. Robertson is a bargain for the Stars, who need every penny this season as they push against the salary cap ceiling.

For comparison, even with their monster seasons, a point from Draisaitl costs $84,158, from Matthews $115,250 and from McDavid $119,047.

Because of his season this year, Robertson is in line for a massive raise in the summer.

Essentially, Robertson drives offense better than almost every player in the league. He scores at rates seldom seen in franchise history. The start of his career is on par with this generation’s best players.

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And he’s doing it on a team that truly needs his production to make the playoffs, and on a team at the salary cap that benefits most from production by cheap players.

“They don’t see him enough,” Stars coach Rick Bowness said of the hockey world at large. “They don’t realize what a natural goal scorer he is. Those pucks are going in, he knows where to put a puck on a goalie. He has the timing, he has the sense. He’s just a natural goal scorer. We’ve watched him long enough to know that. People that don’t know him just haven’t watched us play enough.”

Find more Stars coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.