Devils and Stars Could Make a Hamilton-Centric Deal Work

The Dallas Stars are a prime candidate for Dougie Hamilton's services.

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I recently wrote about three teams that would probably want Dougie Hamilton’s services — the Devils are rumored to be shopping the veteran offensive defenseman in hopes of clearing some cap space.

One team that I’m sure now has its hat in the ring, given recent moves, is the Dallas Stars, who notably got rid of their third NHL-caliber right-handed defenseman, Matt Dumba, in a cap dump. With just two right-handed blueliners worthy of playing time, neither of whom can move the puck particularly well, Hamilton is a better fit than ever.

Even better, it’s hard for me to imagine a world in which Dallas isn’t either on Hamilton’s trade list or more than worthy of waiving it to depart to.

The question then becomes, considering that the Stars don’t have a right-handed puck-mover to send back to New Jersey (other than Nils Lundqvist, I suppose, who has been on the outside looking in for playing time in that organization for the most part and has taken a step back in terms of his puck-moving abilities), what could a potential deal look like, and who would the Devils be looking to get in return?

My gut feeling is telling me that if the two parties were to link up, it would be in a deal centered around Jason Robertson. The Devils are in the market for a true game-breaking winger to add to their corps of high-end talent at the top of the roster. While I think the Devils would be best served trading away Hamilton for a lesser-paid puck-moving defenseman instead of a forward, it’s hard not to salivate thinking about the prospect of adding Robertson.

Robertson, 25, feels like a perfect fit for New Jersey. Despite skating deficiencies — he’s outright one of the worst skaters in the league — his offensive ceiling is astronomical. While he’s logged back-to-back 80-point campaigns with the Stars in the past two seasons, he dropped a 46-goal, 109-point season in 2022-23 and has surpassed the 40-goal marker twice in his career. He has played in three consecutive seasons without missing a single game and has scored 110 goals and 269 points in those 246 games.

Pretty great, I’d say.

Advanced analytics are equally as drool-worthy on the American-born winger. Most public models agree that Robertson is a top-five winger in the league when taking into account all facets of the game. Evolving Hockey, for example, has him fourth in the NHL in terms of all-encompassing goals above replacement (GAR) in the past three seasons, solely trailing David Pastrnak, Zach Hyman, and Nikita Kucherov. He’s more valuable than Mitch Marner, the Tkachuk brothers, Sam Reinhart, Kirill Kaprizov… you get the point.

Micah Blake McCurdy’s sG model has him ranked as an elite first-line player, and one who has held that status since the 2020-21 season, as illustrated below:

via HockeyViz

Adding a player of this caliber feels like a must-do at some point in the immediate future for the Devils. On the back-end, they have this likelihood with Quinn Hughes in the next couple of seasons, but they must do so for the forwards, too. Wasting the prime years of Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, Nico Hischier, and Timo Meier would be a travesty and a crime against hockey. Yet, it’s actively being done by virtue of the pitiful supporting cast.

I have no logical backing for this argument, but it feels like the value surrounding Robertson is less than it should be. That doesn’t mean that he’s going to be inexpensive by any means — I think the Stars very much recognize most of the value he has — but his back-to-back (barely) sub-point-per-game campaigns have likely put a bit of a damper on his value.

Hamilton alone wouldn’t be nearly enough value for the Stars, but it’s a good starting point. They’re in desperate need of another puck-mover — as great as Thomas Harley and Miro Heiskanen are, they can’t shoulder the burden of the entire defense corps’ puck-moving capabilities, considering how inept the lineup otherwise is in that facet of their game — and one on the right side at that. The salary cap implications would already work: with just under $2 million in cap space, the Stars would only be adding $1.25 million to their books with Hamilton’s full contract. The Devils would be crossing off a major need and shedding that $1.25 million for at least one season.

The Devils, then, would be adding futures. A first-round pick would be a minimum request, if not two of them. On top of that, I have to believe that the Stars would want a decent prospect, like Cam Squires or one of the goalie prospects in the pipeline not named Mikhail Yegorov. Perhaps they can get by while supplementing the second hypothetical first-rounder for a second or even a third.

A clear counter-argument to prospectively acquiring Robertson is that the Stars don’t really need to move him, and in most people’s eyes, likely shouldn’t. That may be true, but pundits have long been calling for the Stars to move on from the superstar 25-year-old. Most recently, Jeff Marek reported on his podcast, The Sheet, that he feels as though “something will happen with [him]… sooner rather than later.” Robertson has made appearances high up on every single major outlet’s trade boards for a reason.

For me, while I do believe that the best route forward for the Devils is to either hold on to Hamilton’s services for at least one more season or trade him to a team with a lesser-paid, still-capable puck-moving, right-shot defenseman — the value of moving the puck up-ice from the back-end cannot be understated — Robertson proves to be an intriguing option for a team looking to add more punch to their top six.

Isn’t it just salivatory to think about a top six where only one player isn’t regarded as a star? In my head, the top six would look something like this:

Jason Robertson — Jack Hughes — Jesper Bratt
Evgenii Dadonov — Nico Hischier — Timo Meier

I mean, that has to be the premier top-six in the NHL, right? Amazing what just one addition can do. It feels like the Devils can get by with a little less puck movement from the back end with a top-six like that.

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