The Pittsburgh Penguins made it a point this offseason to acquire Nick Robertson from the Toronto Maple Leafs.
And early in the year, the Penguins showed how much they like Robertson — they gave him time on the first line with Sidney Crosby.
Now, though, Robertson has apparently been demoted in recent games.
His minutes are down, and he’s not getting as many prime-line chances.
Considering how Robertson is playing, it’s been quite confusing.
Penguins’ Nick Robertson Decision Confounds
The Penguins appear to have demoted Robertson from the Crosby line to the fourth line.
In his last four games, he hasn’t reached 11 minutes and 30 seconds in any of them.
He had an 8:32 game, then a 10:10, an 11:01 and an 11:26. He has topped out at 16 shifts in those games.
Five games ago, he had played 21 shifts and 15:14, but the Penguins made the change despite Robertson appearing to play well.
The Athletic’s Josh Yohe wrote this on X:
“Wonder how many players have been demoted from the first to the fourth line while scoring four goals in their first seven games of the season. The Nick Robertson deployment is interesting.”
That last game before Robertson’s apparent demotion did include him going minus-1 and getting just one shot on goal, so maybe the Penguins didn’t love what he did in that game, but the sample size had overall been just fine.
And in the limited action, Robertson has scored two of his goals and been a plus-4 across the four games.
For the season, Robertson has four goals in seven games while firing 13 shots on goal. He only has three blocked shots, one hit and three takeaways, while having six giveaways.
It’s mostly just odd that the usage doesn’t add up — why would the Penguins have changed this while Robertson plays well?
If anything, Robertson has played well enough since the demotion that he may be working on getting promoted back up the lines.
How Penguins Got Nick Robertson
The Penguins made a trade for Robertson on July 1.
He was a restricted free agent, but the Maple Leafs chose to move him rather than negotiate a new contract.
The Leafs got a 2028 fourth-round pick in return for Robertson.
Pittsburgh then signed Robertson to a two-year deal worth a total of $6.5 million ($3.25 million per year).
So far, Robertson looks like he fits in Pittsburgh, even if they haven’t used him in big minutes. If he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’ll get more.
Penguins’ Nick Robertson Decision Confounds After Maple Leafs Trade