Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube spoke candidly when asked about where Nick Robertson’s game is right now as he gets set to serve as a healthy scratch against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday.
“It’s dropped off,” Berube told reporters. “And I talked to [Robertson] about it this morning.”
The embattled 24-year-old winger played a season-low 11 shifts and finished with a season-low 6:58 of ice time in Saturday’s 2-1 shootout loss against the Montreal Canadiens. He failed to record a point or a shot on goal; it was the eighth time in the last nine games Robertson failed to record a point, and he has just three shots on goal over that span.
“Some of it’s ice time, obviously,” Berube added. “He was playing in the top six [earlier in the season], and he was doing a good job, but you make changes.”
Robertson’s playing time has been erratic this season – the sixth-year player has an average ice time of 12:39 over his 27 games, with six games in which he has exceeded 15 minutes of ice time to go along with four games where he has played fewer than 10 minutes.
On the campaign, Robertson has six goals and 12 points. He had a strong stretch of games through the end of October and beginning of November, including an 11-game span in which he averaged over 14 minutes of ice time per contest and tallied five goals and 10 points.
“I have all the confidence that he’ll get it back,” Berube added. “To me, he’s lost a little bit of his jump and tenacity that he plays with but, at the same time, that’s a little bit [owed to] ice time and getting the opportunity too.”
Robertson has had a tumultuous tenure with the Maple Leafs since the team selected him in the second round (53rd overall) of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. After playing a then-career-high 56 games in the 2023-24 campaign, Robertson requested a trade ahead of the 2024-25 season.
He was frustrated about a demotion to the AHL’s Toronto Marlies the year prior, which boiled over into a public trade request before finally agreeing to a contract as a restricted free agent.
Toronto enters their game on Monday against the Lightning at 13-11-4, fifth in the crowded Atlantic Division.
