The Toronto Maple Leafs and Nick Robertson nearly parted ways this summer when the former top prospect made a trade request.
In related news, the Toronto Maple Leafs won their third pre-season game in a row (scoring just twice in each of them) mostly because of Nick Robertson.
Robertson scored twice last night and now has five pre-season goals, the second most in the entire NHL, including 3 x 5v5 goals.
Leafs fans may or may not be aware of the following information: Nick Robertson scored at the same 5v5 rate as 40 goal scorer William Nylander did last season, and all of the other players who have scored at Robertson's level in the OHL, at the age he did it, have a 40 goal NHL season to their credit.
Nick Robertson has emphatically made the Toronto Maple Leafs
Hopefully this not-unexpected pre-season performance leads to the trade rumours about Robertson finally going away, and to him earning a regular spot with one of the Leafs elite centres.
Though they each had two points (one on the PP) the Pacioretty / Robertson / Kampf line was pretty bad at 5v5 overall, according to the numbers.
Easton Cowan had an assist, playing on a line with Stephen Lorentz. Even though Cowan has played in every pre-season game, Berube has used him weirdly. I am not sure why he played so much with Ryan Reaves earlier in camp (prior to this game, at least, his numbers when not on the ice with the NHL's worst player were extremely strong) or why last night he was the second-least used player on the ice for 5v5 minutes.
The Leafs best players last night, at least to my mind, were Timothy Liljegren (who played the most overall) and Topi Niemela. I'm not too sure why he didn't get into a game until now, but he looked like an NHL player and finished with solid numbers. He also led the team in 5v5 ice-time. (stats naturalstattrick.com).
I was interested to watch Nikita Grebenkin last night, but unfortunately, Berube burried him on the fourth line and he played less than Cowan. Cowan at least got a ton of power-play usage, and although Grebenkin saw some PP time, he was still the least used player overall.
Overall, this game didn't seem to drastically change anything, and the big news is obviously how much Robertson is scoring. Here's to the team playing him ahead and above Max Paciortetty when the season starts.
I always forget to talk about the goalies in pre-season games, but Anthony Stolarz was incredible and probably the main reason the Leafs won. He played the entire game and picked up the shut-out.
Notably, Nick Robertson has scored the Leafs last five goals. He scored both goals in two consecutive wins, and the last goal of the game before that.