2024 T25U25: Nicholas Robertson is #4

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Happy early birthday to Nick Robertson, who turns 23 next week. This prospect has been in the Leafs organization for five years, which finally is the long time it's felt like since he was drafted. Since 2019, we've seen Robertson get thrown into the NHL before needing to take a step back and learn some more with the Marlies. He's dealt with injuries, but finally had a healthy season as a fourth liner on the Leafs.

Nicholas Robertson	Vitals
Age as of July 1	22.8
Position	W
Height	5'9"
Weight (lbs)	178
Shoots	L
Draft Year	2019
Draft Number	53

The Player

I found there to be a very diverse set of information to evaluate Robertson with for this ranking.

First, his draft position and his strong scoring results in the OHL, backed up by great numbers in the AHL. Robertson scored like a prospect you would expect to turn into a meaningful contributor. His shot, speed, and tenacity were good building blocks if he could add a transition game or some penalty killing.

Second, his significant injury history hampered a lot of development. 17 games two years ago, 38 the year before, and 27 the year before that. Plus the yo-yo'ing from the AHL to the NHL the past four years likely incentivized short term gain over long term development. I put a fair bit of this on Kyle Dubas, who did this with a couple prospects (Stuart Percy was the other notable one) that I didn't agree with.

To say it a bit more plainly, I don't think Robertson got to spend the time learning the penalty kill or transition the puck with teammates. His job on the Marlies was hard-nose rush offense and power play. And that's what he is as an NHLer today.

Third, in his one full season with the Leafs, he did score at a reasonable rate in a fourth line role. Not the ceiling that was envisioned back in junior, but a contributor to offense in the bottom six. And on a Leafs roster with such shallow left wing depth, he has the opportunity to hit lightning in a bottle and become a possible top six complimentary forward, à la Michael Bunting, who doesn't have to penalty kill or do much more than be a hired gun because Marner or Nylander and Matthews or Tavares is doing all the work up the ice instead.

But unfortunately, Robertson isn't on the Leafs roster. He's still an RFA without arbitration rights, with a report coming out in June that he wants a trade. From the outside, that seems illogical for all the reasons mentioned above, but we don't know what is happening behind the scenes. Maybe he believes he deserves Yegor Chinakov money (a comparable player in points who's making $2.1 million). Maybe he's not happy with other parts of the organization. Maybe he wants a fresh start. Off the ice, Robertson very much seems like a hyper-motivated player. He really buys into the hustle, grind, positive mental attitude stuff a lot of athletes (Easton Cowan included) have. It's possible Robertson wants to "bet on himself".

Whatever the reason for Robertson's alleged trade request, he doesn't have any legs to stand on. At the moment, his spot on the Leafs roster is very replaceable through waivers. Again, he's an RFA without arbitration rights. He's not eligible for waivers yet. There's really no power he has in this situation. Plus, given Brad Treliving's need to look strong in negotiations surrounding the Marner extension, there's no reason for him to give this player what he wants – especially if Treliving wants to keep him. And depending on the contract price point, he's better off keeping Robertson than getting nothing or a late round pick in return.

Then comes his actual play on the ice. It's more-or-less what I described earlier from the AHL. He's a rush player who shoots a lot. He often plays on the second power play unit, but he doesn't penalty kill. The Leafs struggled to ice enough penalty killers as their roster had few and far between. Plus with Domi on the roster, defense was hard to come by in the bottom six.

The pessimist take is Robertson doesn't do enough to be a bottom sixer, and he also isn't good enough to be a top sixer. The optimistic take is if you look at his points per game and just let him score for a full season he might be worth the possible not-insignificant money ask.

My take is slightly different. I lean on the pessimist side, but I also recognize that Robertson is getting a full, healthy summer for the first time in a long time. He's more seasoned, so he might be able to take a step in his game he didn't have before. I really hope he chooses to improve his penalty killing. It would really go a long way. But we'll have to wait and see for training camp. Err, if he's there at all.

The Votes

I ranked Robertson third because he's one of two NHLers on the list this year. It was close between him and Minten, who might be better than Robertson, but I hesitated and wanted to give Robertson credit for actually playing in the NHL. Minten is great, though, and there's a lot of scenarios where he has a better career than Robertson. There's just some where he might never make it.

Voter	Vote
Cathy	5
Brian	6
Species	5
Adam	3
Hardev	3
dhammm	3
Cameron S	3
Hound Line	5
brysplace	5
Catch-67	4
Sclodiggity	3
shinson93	5
The Bag	4
Zone Entry	6
Weighted Average	4.29
Highest Vote	3
Lowest Vote	6

The Opinions

A lot of people had opinions on Robertson, here's what they had to say.

dhammm: Robertson's tough to evaluate. He scored well in limited deployment. He seems to be an NHLer, to be on the path to some kind of success at the NHL level. He will not be a bust, not unless injury obscures his path forward, and he finally put together a season in which he didn't end it injured. The prospect guy in me wants to throw caution to the wind and declare Nick Robertson a success right now, and from the perspective of the data-science prospect analysis I am fond of, he's well on his way to being a 1 rather than a 0. And he was only 22!

So why do we all seem so sour on him? For one, as I watched him this season, I grew frustrated with how often he seemed like a player struggling with the class of the NHL. It wasn't for lack of effort, and that made me feel worse. Frankly, Robertson had the remarkable ability to go into corners and scrambles for the puck and come out of it without possession. He seemed useless in tougher minutes than he got, and that makes his role hard to forecast without him improving substantially beyond his shot and tenacity. I don't see the reason to punt him somewhere else, not for nothing at least, and assuming this trade request goes nowhere, I hope he manages to build on the promise of last season. I hope to see Robbie assert himself better on all facets of the game and firmly establish himself as better than even the best of the Leafs prospects.

Sclodiggity: I ranked Robertson 3rd and considered 2nd. I don’t consider his trade request relevant and don’t put as much stock into injury history as others might. He looks to me like a ready-to-go NHLer with 3rd line winger as a floor and top 6 scoring winger as a ceiling. THAT’S GREAT! Why are people salty on him? Because he scored 55 goals in 46 games in 19/20 and that established expectations which were possible but unlikely to be achieved. With an extended look on a scoring line (which we have an opening for) and he’ll have a career year. 25 goals, 55 points. You heard it here first.

shinson93: The prospect with the most NHL experience needs to be near the top of your list, right? I dropped him one position just based on position flex being lower and dropping his “value” slightly. Not sure that’s fair, but it seems a bit of what is holding him back right now.

Cameron S: Maybe a bit of recency bias involved, but I just feel as if there are a few players ahead of him in terms of NHL ceilings, or that have shown they have a higher floor. Robertson seems like if he can stay in the lineup, can be a great goal scorer, however injuries will always be in the back of my mind. Hoping he re-signs and has a career year with the Leafs.

Cathy: Robertson is nothing but his shot and he shoots from bad locations. I don't have any expectation his shooting location will improve, and while he isn't Max Domi bad at shot choice, he's more like Mitch Marner, and consider what else Marner brings and you will realize that's not a positive comparison. Mostly, what I think is that rather than hating him and undermining him, Sheldon Keefe was very good at mitigating weaknesses and accentuating positives with player usage, even if he really would rather that player wasn't there. So there is a reasonable case to be made that his very poor results by models like HockeyViz overstate his actual ability. What I don't understand is why the Leafs should, just because he is there, create a line that does that mitigating and accentuating when his only talent is not that high quality. I think I ranked him too high but I just couldn't commit to any other player to put above him.

The Bag: I thought I’d have Robertson lower, but I ultimately had few options to rank above someone with 87 NHL games and 17 NHL goals at the age of 22. I don’t see him ever being more than a depth player, but could he be a depth guy who scores 20 goals with some PP2 time (on another team)? Maybe? (Is he the forward equivalent of Connor Timmins?) For that reason, Robertson provided a useful test for me in ranking other players: how confident am I that they could be more than a depth player in the NHL?

That's what the voters had to say. Now it's your turn. Have at it.

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