Big picture is still unclear
Robertson back with Leafs, but the roster runaround is getting to the 22-year-old forward
It’s an NHL tradition in the days after the trade deadline. On Monday morning, the Maple Leafs took a moment before practice to sit for a team photograph.
Nick Robertson, for one, lately hadn’t been sure if he’d be in it. Robertson, after all, spent the leadup to the deadline in a specific kind of limbo, technically assigned to the AHL Marlies but mostly working out with the team’s player development staff, among them assistant general manager Hayley Wickenheiser and former NHLer Patrick O’Sullivan. He’s been taking shots on Matt Murray, the Leafs goaltender who is on long-term injured reserve.
But on Monday, Robertson was called back up to the Leafs, just in time to put on a smile for the annual team picture.
“Yeah, that was nice,” Robertson said. “I was a little worried about that a few days ago, so hopefully I got in there. Luckily, I did.”
If it’s nice to be in a classic centreice snapshot for posterity, it’d be far better to be in the lineup in the run-up to the playoffs. For the 22year-old Robertson, the path back into head coach Sheldon Keefe’s regular rotation isn’t exactly clear. Robertson, who began the season with the Marlies before finding a third-line role with the Leafs at the outset of November, has played in 41 of Toronto’s 64 games. But he hasn’t played in the past five, since he was assigned to the AHL to make room for Calle Järnkrok’s return from a broken knuckle.
On Monday, Robertson’s frustration with the situation was palpable. “I understand it, but I’m not going to sit here and say I’m happy. I want to play,” Robertson said. “But I understand my contract situation. Obviously if it wasn’t the way it was, maybe it’d be different situation.”
Indeed, Robertson has long been a rare Leaf who doesn’t require waivers to be sent to the minors. Another is Matthew Knies, who has spent most of the season firmly ensconced as a top-line winger. With Knies essentially untouchable, demoting Robertson has amounted to the easy out in sticky roster situations.
“I’ve been in plenty of situations here where the waivers have kind of screwed me. So like I said, I’m numb to it,” Robertson said.
The team has taken pains to characterize his absence from the NHL roster as less a performance-based demotion than a salary-cap necessity.
“Him coming out is not a reflection of his play necessarily,” Keefe said when Robertson was sent down March 2. “It’s more so a numbers game.”
And though Robertson’s name was among those bandied about in pre-deadline discussions as a possible trade piece, Friday’s deadline came and went without Toronto general manager Brad Treliving making such a move.
“I consider him one of our players with the Leafs,” Treliving said Friday. “We’ve added depth here today. We look to having Nick back with us before too long. I think he’s going to play a role with us going forward.”
When he’ll be playing that role is anyone’s guess. With the end of the regular season a little more than a month in the distance, with NHL teams ramping up for the playoffs, there’s less patience for developmental hiccups. And there’s plenty of internal competition for spots in Toronto’s lineup at every position. Even with Mitch Marner listed as day-to-day with a lower body injury — Keefe said Marner is unlikely to play in Thursday’s game against the Flyers in Philadelphia — the Leafs have surplus personnel up front. Newly arrived deadline acquisition Connor Dewar looks like a lock as the fourth-line centreman. Noah Gregor joined Robertson as one of the players unattached to a line at Monday’s practice.
The defensive corps is similarly crowded, what with the recent injection of deadline pickups Ilya Lyubushkin and Joel Edmundson — both of whom project as post-season staples. In the lead-up to Saturday’s 3-2 win in Montreal, Keefe made it clear that Timothy Liljegren, for instance, was largely kept in the lineup in favour of healthy-scratched Simon Benoit on account of Liljegren being one of just two right-shooting blueliners available (the other being Lyubushkin). Liljegren’s defensive struggles have been front and centre in recent games. And when you recall that he didn’t make the lineup for Game 1 of the playoffs last year — and with the likes of Mark Giordano and righthanded Conor Timmins on longterm injured reserve but potentially available in the days ahead — it’d be a mistake to assume the Swede will be a shoo-in for a post-season role on account of mere handedness.
“Obviously there’s a lot of competition for spots,” Liljegren said Monday.
“So you’ve got to put in your best game every night … Obviously my defence needs to improve a little bit, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
Indeed, if Liljegren wants to cement his spot in the post-season lineup, the recipe is simple enough: play better. Same goes for everyone else. Although in Robertson’s case, the first step would be to simply play, period.
“It’s nice to see him back,” Keefe said of Robertson. “And nice to have him feel like he’s still a part of what we’re doing here.”
As for how often he’ll be a part of it going forward, Robertson said the team has told him that for now, whether he’ll be skating with the developmental staff or the Leafs will come down to the day-to-day vagaries of NHL roster management. In other words, just because you’re in the team picture doesn’t mean you’re on the team.
“I’ll just kind of keep my phone on standby and wonder what I’m doing,” Robertson said. “I have no option but to keep going, because you never know what happens with anybody. And I’m not going to not be ready, because you need to be ready. That’s just how it is. You’re a professional, you’ve got to be ready. I’ve heard that quote a lot this year. So my job is to stay (ready) … Do the things that I’d do as if I was playing, and just be ready if my name is called.”