After a summer that included a trade request, a stalemate, and Brad Treliving maintaining his desire to keep the player, the Maple Leafs and Nick Robertson have come to terms on a one-year, $875,000 contract. When the deal expires, Robertson will once again be a restricted free agent.
Robertson rescinding his trade request and signing on the dotted line is a case of cooler heads prevailing. Agreeing to terms will benefit both the player and the team now.
Coming off a 14-goal, 27-point season in just 54 games while playing 11:23 per night, Robertson had some reason to believe he could — and probably should — play a larger role, but the reality is that he held no leverage.
Robertson could have signed an offer sheet with a team all summer to force a move, or his agent could have worked with the Leafs to facilitate a trade (with everyone in the league knowing he wanted out), but nobody stepped up to offer something worth pursuing. Failing a move to another team, Robertson’s options were holding out or heading to Europe, and neither of those made sense at a critical juncture in his career. For a bubble player, missing training camp, preseason, and possibly the start of the regular season would not advance his cause.
Treliving handled this exactly as a GM in his position should’ve handled it, which is to wait it out knowing leverage with the RFA player was almost entirely on his side, the team’s relative weakness/open competition on the left wing, and knowing Robertson has legitimate scoring talent on a team in need of depth scoring. Treliving’s messaging publicly was calm and consistent: Nick is wanted here, and he has an opportunity to show up to camp and earn his minutes.
Robertson was viewed primarily as a sheltered scoring winger option under Sheldon Keefe, and his opportunities were limited, in addition to the yo-yo treatment he received as a waiver-exempt player when cap and roster limits were tight over the past few seasons. But he is getting a clean slate with a new coach to prove he can be more than the role he’s played in Toronto to date. While there is a certain perception around Craig Berube’s player preferences, some smaller players fared well under him — most notably Jaden Schwartz, who led the Blues in goals in the playoffs when they won the Cup in 2019.
The roster and cap picture with Robertson under contract
With Robertson signed, he joins a left-winger mix that includes Matthew Knies, Bobby McMann, Pontus Holmberg, Connor Dewar, and possibly Steven Lorentz. If Robertson produces a good camp and impresses Craig Berube, he should be battling for a second-line role with Bobby McMann, as well as second-unit power play time. Such a role should position Robertson to push for 20 goals and provide a legitimate secondary scoring threat for the Leafs.
From a team perspective, regardless of how it shakes out, the depth domino effect is a positive development. It should almost certainly push Holmberg and Dewar down the lineup to the fourth line—which is better suited for their skillsets—and it’s difficult to see a path for Steven Lorentz to make the team straight out of camp unless there is an injury that opens up a spot. Otherwise, the team has 13 forwards signed ahead of Lorentz with varying levels of success with the Leafs last season.
This will also make it that much more difficult for Easton Cowan to make the team. How the Leafs handle Cowan, who really has nothing left to prove in the OHL but would play for Team Canada at the World Juniors (where he wasn’t much of a standout last year), will be an intriguing story to track during training camp.
The $875,000 cap hit also impacts the defense. If Conor Timmins is placed on waivers, it would leave the Leafs just over $1.5 million in cap space, which would coincidentally enough line up exactly with the number the Leafs reportedly signed Jani Hakanpaa to in the summer but has not yet been made official. If the Leafs still sign Hakanpaa to the reported contract, it would leave them roughly $333 below the salary cap.
Shortly after the signing, Darren Dreger tweeted:
I would expect Pacioretty and Hakanpaa to be next in line as Leafs adds. It was important to get Robertson done to avoid the possibility of an offer sheet. https://t.co/45RJnN1HHC
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) September 10, 2024
If the Leafs can sign Hakanpaa still — and he’s able to actually play — this would ultimately shake out as a fairly good summer for the Leafs. It would give them at least 13 NHL forwards and seven NHL defensemen all under the salary cap on the NHL roster, providing Berube with all sorts of options to move players up, down, in, and out of the lineup.
The Leafs need to use that depth to their advantage to keep players fresh, hungry, and honest. In previous seasons, they have largely been running a league-minimum roster where players were essentially locked into their lineup spots unless an injury transpired.
All in all, this is a great deal for the Leafs as it gives them another forward capable of scoring who can help boost their power play while giving them the flexibility to still tinker with the lineup. At the same time, while it’s probably less than what Robertson wants to make, it ensures that he will start training camp on time and hit the ground running for the season, which is what a 22-year-old player with 87 games of NHL experience should be doing.
