TORONTO — For everyone else, this was the start of the new normal.
For Nick Robertson, it was just new.
You couldn’t possibly have dreamed up the circumstances that led to the 18-year-old Toronto Maple Leafs winger pulling on an NHL sweater in a game for the first time. And then to do it in the empty din of Scotiabank Arena at the end of a sweaty July day, well, let’s call that memorable.
Or just plain weird.
Robertson picked up a secondary assist in Tuesday’s 4-2 exhibition victory over the Montreal Canadiens, but more notably left management with an interesting decision ahead of the qualifying series with Columbus: Is he ready now?
Typically, teams are looking for reasons not to force a young prospect into their lineup when pondering this question. But the Leafs have increasingly seemed to be talking themselves into the idea of tossing Robertson directly into a tournament without precedent in the history of the NHL.
“Nick’s the wild-card here in terms of what he can bring and how quickly he can adapt and adjust,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said before training camp wrapped up. “We have to be able to give him those opportunities to be able to see how quickly we can get him up to speed.”
Fortune favours the bold, and all that.
It’s not that Robertson hasn’t looked up to the task. His effort, his puck-hounding abilities and his shot scream big league. But in introducing his higher ceiling to the roster the Leafs may also be opening themselves up to learning experiences you might prefer he get early in the regular season rather than a key moment of a best-of-five.
The fact he’s put himself in this position underlines what a monstrous year this has been. Robertson was part of the first wave of Leafs training camp cuts in September, sent home from St. John’s two days before the first exhibition game was even played with an entry-level contract as the only consolation.
But after a 55-goal campaign in the Ontario Hockey League and a four-month pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he earned a spot alongside Alexander Kerfoot and Kasperi Kapanen for the Leafs’ lone exhibition contest before the playoffs.
It was a nationally televised game with no more than 400 people in the building at that.
In a sloppy affair, in which the puck bounded around like a tennis ball, Robertson looked to be finding his way. He took a holding penalty and lost control of the puck on a glorious scoring chance in the first period, but made a stronger account from there — earning a takeaway with determination on one sequence before picking up his assist on a solid offensive zone shift that saw Kerfoot tip home his second goal of the game.
The way Keefe managed the bench seemed to suggest the decision lies somewhere else before Game 1 against the Blue Jackets on Sunday night. The Leafs coach mixed 13th forward Frederik Gauthier around a fourth line that featured Pierre Engvall between veterans Kyle Clifford and Jason Spezza.
It seemed to bode well for Robertson, the youngest of the 736 players added to NHL rosters for this summer restart.
He’s got a chance to become the first 18-year-old to make his debut in the playoffs since Jarome Iginla on April 21, 1996 — more than five years before he was even born.
Robertson would be the first Maple Leaf to debut at that age in the post-season since Gaye Stewart in the 1942 Stanley Cup Final, and the first 18-year-old to play for the Leafs in the playoffs since Ted Kennedy in 1944.
You get the picture: This is not your run-of-the-mill situation.
But then again, is anything normal right now?
