BOSTON — The Nick Robertson who requested the Toronto Maple Leafs trade him away after benching him for last spring’s pivotal Game 7 in Boston is not the same player the team is unlikely to deal before next Friday’s deadline.
This Robertson — back in Boston and freshly showered from an up-tempo practice — wants to be the player who is counted on by the Maple Leafs in those pivotal playoff games when shifts get hard and physical and guys like him either play bigger than their five-foot-nine listing or don’t play at all.
Healthy, mature, and eager to adapt to head coach Craig Berube’s style of attack, Robertson has flipped from sulking (behind the scenes) about not being used in a Game 7 to trying to turn himself into a winger who can be depended upon in one.
The 23-year-old, who bent to management’s pre-camp leverage and signed an $875,000 contract to prove himself, denies any anxiety surrounding March 7. This, despite his pending restricted free agency (again) and the occasional round of murmurs that he could be packaged out of town.
“I want to be here, so I’m fine. Yeah, I don’t think about that stuff,” Robertson says Wednesday, following a team practice at Warrior Ice. “I’ve been worried about my day off tomorrow, doing what I got to do.”
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All days off, Robertson assures, are identical, be they in Winnipeg or New York City, where the speedy Californian will try to build on his three-goals-in-two-games outburst Friday versus the Rangers. He seeks out a sauna, undergoes treatment and recovery exercises, snipes a few marks in Call of Duty, and goes for dinner with a few teammates.
Robertson finds comfort in the routine, the duty, and he is pouring his efforts into not being the one-dimensional flank blaster everyone thought he was when the Leafs drafted him in the second round after his 55-goal showcase for the 2019-20 Peterborough Petes.
Does Robertson feel pigeonholed as a player?
“Maybe in junior, I was just that,” Robertson says. “But desperate times call for desperate measures. Fight or flight. You want to survive? You want to play in the game? You gotta elevate.”
The scrappy kid who, less than 10 months ago, raised his hand and requested flight is choosing to fight.
Elevation means cutting this month’s 4 Nations break short to hit the ice alongside big brother Jason Robertson, big bruiser Nikita Zadorov and a few other NHLers down in Florida in training sessions run by personal coach-slash-extended family member Tommy Monnino, whom the Robertsons have been working with since childhood.
So what if most of his peers were still lounging on the beach or that the Maple Leafs weren’t yet open for business?
Robertson says he needed to “get my mind right, get back to my job.”
Following a 14-goal showing in just 56 games and another productive pre-season, Robertson’s job, most assumed, was to score.
But he didn’t hit double digits until this past weekend, and the new coach prefers ugly tips and greasy rebounds over pretty one-timers.
Be it through some more healthy scratches, a snakebit shooting percentage, or frank conversations with Berube, Robertson got the message.
Better adapt.
Better figure out a way to impact the result on nights where the puck doesn’t fall.
And fast.
“Just how the season was going, it was kind of a blessing in disguise. Like, you got to have desperation,” Robertson explains. “When it’s desperate, I’ll be physical. I’m wanting to get into the game, be impactful.”
“Last year, the most I played was 20 games (in a row), then I got scratched, shifting in and out. I hate that,” he continues. “So, I made a decision that I want to play every single game. Like I said, back to the desperation thing, I want to be in the lineup every game. I want to be an impactful player. And so far, it’s been working.”
It worked like a charm Wednesday at TD Garden. Robertson’s rip off the rush helped spark a dramatic comeback, his net-driving assist to Pontus Holmberg tied the game in the final minute, and he didn’t shy from cross-checks and chirps.
As the booming, blustery post-win strains of 50 Cent’s “Many Men” faded from the Leafs dressing room (sample lyric: I’m the diamond in the dirt that ain’t been found / I’m the underground king and I ain’t been crowned), Robertson spoke of how “emotional” the game was and how it resembled the playoffs.
In that environment, on that night, he thrived.
The way Berube has been asking him to.
“I call it tenacious,” Berube says. “I’m not talking about running around and trying to kill everything in sight. It’s just body contact on pucks. Like, get in there with your speed and create contact and get those loose puck battles. And he’s doing that.”
Robertson’s hits per 60 are on the rise. He’s drawn seven more penalties than he’s taken. And teammates are taking notice of his engagement, despite still being limited to a dozen minutes a night.
“I like his game right now. He’s showed he can be a little hard to play against,” says Simon Benoit. “I told him that it’s harder to get hit by a smaller guy, because they get you right in the ribs. Then you got no breath and can’t get the puck.”
Like a sore rib, something just clicked.
Whether it benefits the Leafs, his trade value, or his next team, Robertson’s tweaked approach will help his own chances of survival in this league.
“Chief has a different style, and I’ve adapted to it. And I think it just brings the grittier, harder side of me. I think it’s brought something in me that I didn’t know I had,” Robertson says.
“Coming from junior, early in pro, I wasn’t looking to be a physical-type guy. But now, I think different times call for different types of players.
“I think I’m better than I was last year, just being more well-rounded and kind of playing… not like a rat. But hard. Like, being in the face. Not a checker but getting more touches on guys.”
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Veteran Max Pacioretty, another pure shooter in the process of adding physicality, sees Robertson’s confidence swelling with every shot.
“You see it go in, you feel it, and you start to feel good about yourself,” Pacioretty says, knowingly. “Goes in a little bit more in practice, and then it seems to snowball from there.”
Robertson sheepishly admits that it “sounds corny,” but he is buying into the system.
He is no longer living and dying with every red lamp or dented crossbar.
He is now taking pride in a cleared puck, an angering cross-check, a scrum he didn’t shy from: “That’s playoff hockey (and) I want to be in the game.”
Robertson sees those tiny moments as a springboard to “use my real strength, which is shooting.”
His coaches are noticing. His teammates are noticing. And the people with the power to keep or trade him are noticing.
“He just keeps doing what he’s doing,” Berube says, “he’s going to get more ice time.”
