Photo Credit: Glenn James / Getty Images
With the start of the 2023-2024 season now underway, Stars fans, even relatively new Stars fans, likely noticed a stark difference between this year’s training camp and preseason games, and last year’s. The presence of number 21. His name is Jason Robertson, “Robo” to the team and fans, and he has solidified himself as perhaps one of the most pivotal members of the Dallas Stars lineup.
He’s been touted by some as this generation’s version of Mike Modano, and with statistics like those he put up in 2021 and 2022, it’s not hard to understand why. If you watch videos of Modano in his early career and compare them to videos of Robertson since claiming his spot on the roster in 2021, you may not see the similarities in skating styles or gameplay, but Robertson’s shattering of Modano’s previous point record and his consecutive 40-goal seasons should say it all.
In 1993, at 23-years-old, in the Stars’ inaugural season in Dallas, Modano recorded 50 goals and finished the season with 93 points, firmly cementing his position in the Dallas Stars spotlight for many years. In contrast, Robertson at 23, scored 46 goals, and finished the season with 109 points, making him the first Dallas Star to ever have a 100+ point season. And Robertson isn’t just breaking Modano’s records, he’s also doing things Modano never did, like scoring a hat trick in back-to-back games. He’s the first Dallas Star to ever do that, too.
“Last year, it was kind of his coming out party,” coach Peter DeBoer said of Robertson in 2022. “Everybody thought can he do it again. But, you know, it was real. Not only did he come back, but he built on what he did last year. And I think he’s just scratching the surface. I mean, he’s going to be a 50-goal, 100-point guy here potentially for the next decade.”
And while breaking and setting records isn’t new to Robertson, it hasn’t made his journey into the NHL any easier. In 2015, at just 16-years-old, Robertson was playing for the Kingston Frontenacs of the Ontario Hockey League, the youngest possible age an individual can be, playing junior hockey. Only two years later, he was drafted 39th overall in the second round by the Stars. And while number 39 is a draft selection spot to find great pride in, he wasn’t the main focus of the Stars’ draft picks that season, as his draft class included the likes of Miro Heiskanen and Jake Oettinger. He attended training camp that year, but ultimately returned to Kingston, where he was named one of four rotating assistant captains for the Frontenacs for the 2017-2018 season. It would be another two years before he officially claimed his place in the Stars organization, and even then, was in Austin with the Texas Stars.
In 2020, he was called up to Dallas after an injury to forward Alexander Radulov. He recorded his first NHL point that night with an assist to Tyler Seguin in his debut game, but it would be his only point in the mere three games he spent in Dallas before heading back to Austin. He traveled with the Stars as a prospect to the Edmonton bubble during the NHL’s truncated 2020 season but didn’t see any ice time.
“I played a couple games with him last year, and you saw he was a playmaker, but you still really saw a young player that physically might not have been ready quite yet,” Pavelski said of Robertson in 2021. “I think the bubble was really good for him, being around all of us, seeing the game, and then I think a lot of credit goes to him. He went home and worked hard, put on some extra strength.”
His first NHL goal came a year later, in February of 2021, and within a month, he had scored three more and recorded another eight points in 11 games. In April of 2021, he was named the NHL’s Rookie of the Month and was second in the league in rookie scorers. At the end of the season, he had been named to the NHL’s All-Rookie Team and was a controversial runner-up for the Calder Memorial Trophy behind Kirill Kaprizov. Robo’s presence on the same line as Joe Pavelski and Roope Hintz, and the insane chemistry the three generated together, helped the line earn its “Avengers” nickname. And in January 2023, Robertson was chosen to represent the Dallas Stars in the 2023 NHL All-Star game.
Perhaps most notably for, and of, Robertson is how he has handled, and continues to handle, his recent successes. Not many athletes would be able to take some of the harsh mental hits Robo has and use them to truly push and improve themselves as Robo very clearly has. For many, if not most, having to wait five years to wear the jersey of the team who drafted you would be devastating. Being a runner-up for one of the most prestigious awards that can be achieved in the NHL, and one that you’re only eligible for once, would be crushing. But not for Robo. And the league is noticing.
In December of 2022, at the NHL Board of Governors meeting in Florida, Steve Mayer, the NHL’s Chief Content Officer, referred to Robertson as one of the new “faces of the league.”
“We need to do more with him, and we will,” Mayer said. “It’s time to build around Jason Robertson in our planning more.”
It’s hard to predict what may be to come for the young Filipino-American, but if the things he’s accomplished to this point are any indication, and the leadership he displayed in his younger years any hint of what he can do as the head of a team, he could easily find himself in a spot to overtake Modano in another statistic; donning the C far sooner than 10 seasons in and long before turning 30.
Leave a Reply