St. Louis Blues vs. Dallas Stars at the American Airlines Center; Friday, 8 p.m. CST LINE: Stars -211, Blues +169; over/under is 5.5 BOTTOM LINE: The Dallas Stars start the season at home against the St. Louis Blues. Dallas went 50-20-12 overall and 19-9-4 in division play last season. The Stars scored 273 goals while allowing 222 for a +51 goal differential last season. The Stars won their four preseason games with a combined score of 8-3, including two 2-1 wins over St. Louis. The Stars are seeking another deep playoff run after losing in the first round in 2025. The roster is largely the same. The Stars return Team USA goalie Jake Oettinger, top scorer Jason Robertson on a one-year deal, rising star Wyatt Johnson, and returning stars Mikko Rantanen and Miro Heiskanen. Oettinger has won 173 regular-season games in the past five seasons, and Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy is the only NHL goalie in that span with more (180). Robertson declined to be traded in the offseason after a protracted contract negotiation with the front office. He’ll make $12m this season before hitting free agency. The team could trade or extend him later in the season. Robertson has averaged more than a point a game in his six full NHL seasons, all with the Stars — 490 points (213 goals and 277 assists) in 456 regular-season games. He was their leading scorer with 96 points (45 goals and 51 assists) last season, and had five goals with three assists in six playoff games. His third 40-goal season wrapped up a $31 million, four-year deal before he entered the offseason as a restricted free agent. Without a contract extension, Robertson next summer could become an unrestricted free agent for the first time. General manager Jim Nill said the Stars hope to reach a long-term extension, though the earliest they could sign such a deal would be Jan. 1. He said they would start working on it before then with a player he has called a franchise cornerstone. Nill said different scenarios were discussed during these negotiations, including long- and short-term deals. He said Robertson’s representatives made it clear throughout the process that the forward wanted to be with the Stars. Robertson, the 39th overall pick in the second round of the 2017 NHL draft, has played in all 328 regular-season games the past four seasons. He has scored 365 points (155 goals and 210 assists) in that span. His $12 million salary for 2026-27 will match forward Mikko Rantanen for the highest on the Stars. Rantanen just completed the first season of the $96 million, eight-year extension he signed to facilitate the deadline trade that brought him to Dallas from Carolina in March 2025. The Stars had a sign-and-trade deal in place during last month’s draft to send Robertson to Seattle for the seventh overall pick. While Robertson couldn’t veto that trade, he didn’t agree to a long-term deal with the Kraken — a reported $120 million over eight years ($15 million a season). With veteran Tyler Seguin going into the final season of his contract that pays $9.85 million annually, and the NHL salary cap also increasing by almost that much next offseason, the Stars would be in a much better position to extend Robertson than they are now. With revenues rising and the salary cap getting record increases, it is not hard to envision a future when someone is making $30 million per season. When the cap was put in place in 2005 coming out of a lockout that wiped out an entire season, the ceiling for spending was $39 million for each of the then-30 teams. No player could make more than $7.8 million per year. The cap more than doubled to $81.5 million by 2019, before the pandemic hit sports hard and stunted growth. There were small increases through 2024, when the cap jumped to $88 million. Going up to $95.5 million last season, $104 million now, and $113.5 million for 2027-28 has paved the way for team spending in a big way; the initial cap projection is $127.5 million for 2028-29. The NFL and NBA each have more than 100 players making more than $20.4 million this season and Major League Baseball has 74 (Nine of the 10 biggest sports contracts by total value in North America belong to MLB players). Hockey is beginning to catch up. The most an NHL player can make is 20% of the cap, making the maximum annual value $22.7 million in 2027-28. That could become $25.5 million or more when Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews are eligible for new contracts and Matthew Schaefer’s rookie deal with the New York Islanders expires in 2028. McDavid declined a raise from $12.5 million a year to give Edmonton more room to build a roster that can win the Stanley Cup. Crosby has remained at $8.7 million — his jersey number and birthday and year — since 2008 and hoisted the Cup three times, not feeling pressure to take more money. No team since 2005 has won the Cup with a player counting over $10 million against a year’s team salaries. With nearly two-thirds of teams with at least one player making that, that is sure to change soon as tides rise across the sport. The Stars also return longtime veteran Jamie Benn, who has played with Seguin since 2013. Both players could be free agents next offseason. St. Louis had a 37-33-12 record overall and went 10-16-0 in Central Division games last season. The Blues scored 230 total goals a season ago, averaging 2.8 per game on 25.3 shots per game. INJURIES: Stars: Matt Duchene: out (lower-body). Blues: Tyler Tucker: out (knee), Logan Mailloux: out (hand). ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar. ...read more read less