A+ but I think we'd have to pay him more. Like 9M x 5

Maybe $8.4 is the limit for a first, second, and third. It's more than Dallas can afford so he might be willing to take it.

Dallas would match easily

First, this is only a bit less than Chicago received for DeBrincat (7th OA, 2nd and 3rd) why should Robertson be worth significantly more than this.
Second, adding Robertson would certainly make Buffalo better.
Third, Buffalo may want to send players and prospects as their prospect pool is really deep.
Finally, Buffalo would be very vulnerable to other teams raiding our players (Cozens, Power, Krebs, Quinn, Savoie, etc.) in a few years, it would be best if Buffalo did not go down this path.
Montreal was severely punished when they did this a couple of years past.

They don't have the cap space to do so, otherwise he'd already be signed.

Getting a first round picks for a third line center, who was a healthy scratch in the playoffs, is not what I call "severely punished."

I’d hardly call losing Kotkaniemi as “severely punished”

Robertson has a 125 points in his first 128 games and Dallas isn't going to let him go like Montreal did with Kotkaniemi. Dallas would get a week or 2 to decide and become cap compliant.

What are they gonna do to become Cap compliant?

Do you really not know the answer to that?

No team would let a player of Robertson's caliber walk for that reason. They'd send their mom to the AHL if it was necessary.

The fact that he's not signed now doesn't mean anything, it happens all the time, it's called hard negotiations...

Look no further than Brady Tkachuk last season. Now he's signed long term and his buddies too

What is the answer?

They can make a trade it will probably a player they don't want to lose and the return will more than likely be bellow market value. If you think about it JR is currently one of the most valuable players on the Star's given skill and age so keeping him should be the top priority. I wouldn't trade Hintz or Heiskanen but after them pretty much everyone else is fair game. But that's me.

I agree.

Lets say Robertson signs for 9 million, they could possible trade Khudobin and be Cap compliant. But the thing is that many of Stars players has NMC's so it's gonna be interesting to see what they do. Stars probably has to pay surprisingly much to just get rid of somebody.