The stakes couldn’t be higher for Nick Robertson.
Rewind back a month, and there were questions about whether the 23-year-old would ever don a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater again, reports surfacing of a trade request after a half-decade of limited opportunity for the big club.
Then everyone calmed down, Robertson and the Maple Leafs agreed on a one-year, $875,000 reunion, and the conundrum got pushed down the road. But for new head coach Craig Berube, the issue persists. Through three pre-season games, the latest one a 2-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens at Scotiabank Arena Thursday night, the question marks looming over his lineup remain definitively airborne.
There’s no confusion about how the squad lines up down the middle, with Auston Matthews, John Tavares and David Kampf resuming their pivot duties, and William Nylander set to get a spin at centre, too. But it’s on the wings where the vision gets muddy, particularly the left side, where Robertson, young prospect Easton Cowan, and veteran PTO addition Max Pacioretty are all vying for a spot on the opening-night roster.
Even after a night that saw the Maple Leafs earn their first victory of the campaign, after a solid evening from their left wingers, little seems resolved.
For Robertson, it was a head-scratcher of an evening.
First came a costly decision midway through the first period that wound up knocking Nylander out of the lineup, Robertson reaching out with his stick to give No. 88 a boost as he chased down an opponent on the back-check, only to instead cause his teammate to lose his balance, fall to the ice, and get clipped in the head by a passing player.
The star winger-turned-centreman remained on the ice for some time before heading down the tunnel. He didn’t return for the rest of the evening.
And then there was the other side, in the final minutes of the second period, when Robertson snuck up and stole the puck away from Canadiens defender Adam Engstrom in Montreal’s zone, turned, bee-lined for the net, and sniped the eventual game-winner past netminder Jakub Dobes.
The night was no less up-and-down for young Cowan, the 19-year-old buzzing around the puck all night, showing the jump and offensive instincts that have the Maple Leafs faithful awaiting his arrival, but ultimately winding up empty-handed by the game’s end.
It makes the task sitting before Berube plenty difficult, with three more pre-season tilts to iron out who among the fringes has earned a roster spot, while balancing the need to get his vets the reps required before Game 1 of the real thing begins. But the situation seems particularly murky in the case of Robertson — should the young winger not make the club out of camp, a trip through the waiver-wire without getting claimed seems unlikely, putting a potential trade back on the table.
That said, in the eyes of one of the leaders whose spot is assured, it was a good night for the hopefuls.
“I thought Robbie was great,” John Tavares said after the final buzzer had sounded. “It’s good to see him get rewarded, especially off the hustle, the effort, [working]to get the puck back and obviously a nice shot, nice release, to get the winner.
“I thought Easton created a lot and was skating well. You can tell their games went to another level today, which was great for us.”
The new bench boss agreed, on both counts.
“Robbie’s a dynamic skater, he’s got a motor on him,” Berube said. “He just works and works and works. Great to see him get a goal there. … I thought (Easton) had a real good game. He did a lot of good things — skated with the puck, was strong on it, in some battles, he won them. He hounded tonight, like I expected.
“Again, he’s a good worker, with ability, with skill. I thought he did that tonight, had a lot of energy out there, and was very noticeable.”
Injury issues continue to mount for Maple Leafs’ core four
Far outweighing the result or anything that turned up on the scoresheet Thursday was the awkward incident that ended Nylander’s night early. Four months after severe migraines kept him out of the club’s 2024 post-season bid, it was a worrying sign to see No. 88 forced down the tunnel after taking an incidental blow to the head.
“Obviously, elephant in the room, the Willy situation — it’s unfortunate,” Robertson said of the sequence post-game. “It’s kind of a fluke thing. I was trying to give him a little boost on the back-check, and I didn’t know (Joe) Armia was coming inside, so it was just a tough play.
“I talked to him and he’s doing good. We’ll see how he is in the next few days.
The hope for Leafs fans is that Nylander’s absence was simply a case of the team being cautious given the situation, that all will be well by the time Oct. 9 comes around. On that note, his coach didn’t seem worried about the early exit.
“He’ll be okay. He’s fine,” Berube said late Thursday. “Nothing to worry about.”
Tavares had his own night cut short by potential injury as well — finishing the game with only 12-and-a-half minutes of ice, lowest on the squad outside of Nylander — after taking an awkward hit early in the game.
“My leg was getting pretty stiff from the hit I took there in the first,” the 34-year-old said. “It wasn’t so bad afterwards but kind of throughout the second and especially in the third, it just got really, really stiff, and I didn’t have much.”
The former captain’s had a quality pre-season so far aside from the bumps and bruises, adding a power-play marker to his pre-season stat line Thursday night. Still, with Tavares and Nylander tested in this one, and Auston Matthews already held out of Thursday’s game to deal with a nagging upper-body injury, the Maple Leafs find themselves holding their breath before the season has even arrived, the injury bug nipping at the heels of Toronto’s core early.
Lorentz scratching, clawing for his fourth-line shot after solid debut
Further down the lineup, another roster hopeful seemed to plant his flag Thursday night, a relentless evening from Steven Lorentz helping his cause as the squad comes into focus.
Joining the team for camp on a professional tryout — fresh off winning the Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers — Lorentz was a dog on a bone in his pre-season debut Thursday, spending the majority of his roughly 15 minutes of ice hunting the puck, battling along the wall, and pushing the Canadiens back.
“I just really liked the way he was forechecking today,” Tavares said of the newcomer. “Just hounding on the puck and closing time and space, really strong along the wall in our defensive zone as well. He came in and was a nice presence for us today.”
Getting into 38 tilts for Florida last season, and another 15 in the post-season, the Kitchener, Ont., product made the most of his first opportunity with the Maple Leafs. Asked what it meant to wear the crest of the club he grew up supporting, a wide grin broke over Lorentz’s face.
“Special,” he said. “That’s an understatement. I tried to take it all in, from the moment I got here, to putting the gear on, looking around, just even looking at some of the names around the locker room. It’s pretty surreal. But it was a great first game.”
Lorentz will surely be hoping to follow in the footsteps of former San Jose Sharks teammate Noah Gregor, who similarly inked a PTO with Toronto last summer, and spun it into a one-year, $775,000 deal with the Maple Leafs, Gregor eventually earning 63 games with the big club in 2023-24, and a couple in the post-season, too.
For now, it’s another conundrum for Berube — who heaped praise on the depth winger’s debut post-game — with other fourth-line options like Pontus Holmberg and Ryan Reaves in the mix, too. The next chance to sort it all out comes Saturday, when the Maple Leafs and Canadiens reunite in Montreal for the fourth tilt of Toronto’s pre-season slate.
