It’s been little more than a week since the Dallas Stars were eliminated in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs 4-2 by the Minnesota Wild. The series loss represents Dallas’ earliest playoff exit in four years. Managing to pile up 10 goals with the extra man through the six games, Dallas attempted to ride their goliath power play from the regular season into postseason success. However, they were completely dominated at even strength against their former hometown’s club, being outscored 17-5 in the series when matched man to man, and that was their undoing.
With last season’s superstar trade deadline acquisition Mikko Rantanen mostly quiet, and some shaky goaltending by Jake Oettinger, there’s plenty of blame to go around for the Stars’ unceremoniously abbreviated promising season. Yet little of it should lay at forward Jason Robertson’s skates. Four of the five goals Dallas did manage to score at even strength came off the stick of the star left winger. Logging five goals and eight points over the series’ six games with little help from his teammates, Robertson appeared to continue his electric 2026 regular season campaign into the playoffs and was one of the few bright spots against Minnesota.
This season is the last in Robertson’s current deal. He enters the offseason as a restricted free agent, and he’s certainly made the most of this contract year. “Robo” certainly had a career year, leading the team with 96 points (45 goals, 51 assists), though that performance is not an outlier. In his seven seasons in Dallas, the Filipino American has been one of the best forwards in the NHL, ranking in the Top 10 in most scoring categories. His total this year makes it his fourth consecutive season with 80 or more points. That’s a run matched only by the organization’s brightest Star, the legendary Mike Modano, in the franchise’s history. In 2021-2022, Robertson tallied 79 points, just one point shy of making 2026 the fifth straight year. The 26-year-old also boasted a seven-game goal-scoring streak, a feat not even Modano pulled off, and represents the longest such streak since the North Stars relocated to Dallas. Robertson’s offensive consistency has already vaulted him to 14th in scoring in franchise history in his short career.
Far from just a one-sided player, No. 21 regularly logs minutes against opponents’ top lines, displaying strong two-way prowess and steadily ranking among the club’s top in plus/minus. This season’s +22 was bested only by blue-line stalwart Essa Lindell.
Robertson’s consistent elite performance continues to highlight the controversial snub by Team USA in this year’s Winter Olympics. Despite leading all American-born players with 48 points, and ranking second in goal scoring, Robertson was a confounding noninvite. Many believe his ethnicity as an Asian American could have played a role in being denied the chance to play for his country. His mother, Mercedes Robertson, immigrated to the United States from Manila when she was 3 years old. It was alleged that he was left off the national team because he supposedly didn’t meet the threshold of the blue-eyed, square-jawed image of Captain America or that he was too much of a finesse player and doesn’t have the trench-warfare, along-the-boards grit that USA hockey is known for. Whatever the reason, when considering a possible extension for Robertson, the Stars would do well not to make the same mistake.
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In fact, it would be easy to argue that there might be no better player than Robertson to represent the United States. His multiethnic background encapsulates one of America’s most defining values: diversity. Nowhere else on Earth is there a population as multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural. Robertson’s Asian heritage doesn’t contradict the definition of Americanism. It defines it.
While the NHL is certainly an international league, the players who make it up are overwhelming monoethnic. See also: white. There are currently only a handful of ethnically Asian players in the league. In addition to Robertson, other notable players of Asian decent are the Montreal Canadiens’ Nick Suzuki and the Utah Mammoth’s Kailer Yamamoto, who are both Japanese, and New Jersey Devils’ Jonas Siegenthaler, who is Swiss-Thai. Jason Robertson’s younger brother, Nicholas, plays for the Toronto Maple Leafs, and former teammate Matt Dumba, now a Pittsburgh Penguin, shares the Robertsons’ Filipino heritage. Historically, there have been only 40 or so players of Asian decent in the entire 100-year history of the NHL. Or roughly 0.4% of the 9,000 current and former players. The National Hockey League has been plagued by charges of subconscious racism for decades. Robertson as a face for the league helps curtail some of those accusations. He has the best chance at reaching the same bar for Asian-decedent hockey players that was set by Hall of Famer Paul Kariya 20 years ago.
Not only does Robo make a great representative for the country and the league, but as a Dallas Star, he’s an ideal rep for the state. Texas has the third-largest Asian-American population in the United States, and the community is the fastest growing ethnic group in the Lone Star State. Roberston has been very vocal about how seriously he takes his role as a representative for the Asian-American community and the meaningfulness of his presence as a step toward diversity in a sport so egregiuosly devoid of it. While Dallas has a reputation for being the NHL’s version of the Finnish National Team (four of the team’s biggest stars hail from the Scandinavian country), the Stars would be wise to lean into Robertson as the best marketing vehicle for the sport of hockey in Texas. He represents the face of what a modern league should aspire to. Lord knows, at worst, they still need his even-strength goal scoring. Lock him up.
