TORONTO — Nobody who’s holding concert tickets for a great band thinks the success of that performance hinges on the guy playing the triangle. But, there are some songs where a few well-placed “tings” might help fill out the music.
Similarly, the fate of the 2024-25 Toronto Maple Leafs rests on the core of their dynamic band, not their less-heralded triangle players. But have no doubt that a few well-placed “tings” off the inside of the post from Nick Robertson could be a factor that helps push this team over its usual two-three seed in the division, and to the top.
If the core is going to be the same, the Leafs will need more scoring at the fringes.
Last season, the only Leafs who scored 20 goals or more were the Core Four and Tyler Bertuzzi (21), who left as a free agent to go play with Connor Bedard. The next closest in goals was nearly Robertson himself, who was just one behind Matthew Knies (15) and Bobby McMann (15), both of whom had far better opportunities.
Scoring goals is the hardest thing to do in the NHL, and Robertson has the innate gift to find goals. In their quest for more playoff success, the Leafs need to finish higher in the regular season standings, and Robertson can help them win games. If in fact he has taken a step — which I’ll get to in a moment — he could conceivably help them with their other problem: scoring goals in the playoffs.
When you spend what the Leafs have committed to their core, how you choose to fill in around them becomes more critical, and so this Robertson conversation is an important one.
For some context on what we’re talking about when we discuss Robertson, there’s a laundry list of pros and cons, but at this point the pros of giving him a proper opportunity outweigh the cons. And by “opportunity” I mean about 14 minutes per game with some time on PP2, nothing crazy.
The pros
• He’s still young, having just turned 23 a couple weeks ago. He has unquestioned scoring ability, with 55 goals in a 46-game junior season, and 14 for the Leafs in 56 games last season while playing just 11:23 per game. Those minutes were primarily on the third line and only at even strength.
• He has the best shot on the team of anyone not named Auston Matthews.
• He’s looked great in the pre-season, his skating is better than it was a couple years ago, he works hard at hounding pucks now, and he’s got some experience in the league. He’s also dirt cheap, coming in at $875,000 against the cap. The Leafs aren’t exactly loaded at wing either.
The cons
• He’s a small player who doesn’t contribute in a positive way when he’s not scoring. He’s still learning to prioritize team-first when it comes to structure (and perhaps passing). He’s also prone to injury, but that’s a bridge you have to cross if/when you come to it.
• He isn’t an established name (does that matter?), or maybe hasn’t developed at the speed they’d hoped.
If you’ve followed my thoughts on Robertson in the past, I’ve made two cases for why he wasn’t ready for the Leafs. The first was the positional stuff when he doesn’t have the puck I mentioned above, and the second was that he hasn’t been able to create his own shot at the NHL level.
With the first, there are myriad NHL scorers who aren’t great when they aren’t on offence, and so you can live with that for the upside. Many teams do. But when that same player also needs someone else to create their looks for them, you’re asking the rest of the team to help too much. That’s been Robertson in the past.
But I started to see the latter factor change in his game last season, and having seen him play this pre-season, Robertson looks as though he’s found enough extra pop in his step to finally create his own chances at times. If that’s really the case, his goal total could spike. If his goal total spikes, and he makes marginal improvement without the puck, they’ve got a player.
I’ve seen a number of players who are AHL cheat code level good – the name Seth Griffith comes to mind —but when they get to the NHL, they just can’t quite find the same space they need to get off their deadly shots. Another comparable from my era might be Jeff Tambellini, who played 242 NHL games and could’ve been a massive scorer if he were able to gain just an inch more space as he was getting off his shot. He played the same amount of games in NHL as he did in the AHL — he scored 27 times in the NHL and 130 times in the AHL.
I wasn’t sure Robertson would get past that hang-up of creating enough space for himself at the NHL and wondered if he’d ever be able to wield his unique shooting talent. However, I’ve seen enough over the past nine months to now believe he can do it, at least enough to give the Leafs a decent goal total from a non-core four player. If he plays 70-plus games for the Leafs this year, he’ll finish fourth or fifth in goal scoring.
As an NHL GM, Brad Treliving has had a penchant for ‘name’ players. In his first summer guiding the Leafs, he added established names to the roster through free agency — John Klingberg, Ryan Reaves, Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi. This past summer he acquired Oliver Ekman-Larsson and, yes, Max Pacioretty.
It’s that last name that concerns Robertson the most, as Pacioretty is not just a name, but a massive one. Given his NHL career, including years spent as captain of the Montreal Canadiens, you certainly wouldn’t bring him in on a PTO and cut him, particularly after he put up two goals and an assist in his first “tryout” game. Further to that, multiple people have reported that Pacioretty is staying in Toronto and is only unsigned as they figure out how much money they’ll have to pay him, exactly.
As long as Pacioretty is around, he’s the guy who will eat Robertson’s opportunity in the early going. If Pacioretty plays in the middle six as expected, and others such as Steven Lorentz and Pontus Holmberg and David Kampf and Connor Dewar and Ryan Reaves have the fourth line locked up, Robertson could have trouble getting the chance he needs to make the case that he can help this team.
A slow start could lead to more frustration, and Toronto could decide to move on from Robertson, who would then likely go score a good amount of goals somewhere else.
Can Robertson score enough to deny someone else a shot at a middle six wing spot? The Leafs at least need to find out by giving him 10 or 15 games there.
It’s a pretty low-risk proposition.
If Craig Berube can help Robertson away from the puck and encourage that dog-on-bone mentality he seems to have found, it’ll foster some confidence that will allow the coach to play Robertson more and might allow the winger to finally find a rhythm. Why not start the season from there, rather than beginning with Robertson on the outside looking in?
Put the onus on the kid to do it early, or fail, and make the decision for you.
When the Leafs start up another season on Oct. 9 they’ll yet again have the talent to make some beautiful music. If given the chance, I’m betting Nick Robertson can hit on the right notes.