Return for Nick Robertson, Auston Matthews’ shot blocking, and some quick takes: Leaflets

It’s been five games. As a general rule I try to wait until 20 before planning the parade or declare that the sky is falling. Pretty much everything is reactionary at this moment and it only takes one good or bad game to change a narrative. With that disclaimer in place, here are some thoughts that I’ll likely disavow by November.

Toning down Matthews’ shot blocking

Last season Auston Matthews blocked 89 shots in 67 games. The season before he blocked 93 in 81 games. This season he has 15 blocked shots through five games putting him on pace for 246 blocked shots. I’m going to be bold and say that these numbers are likely to normalize over the course of the season and Auston isn’t going to finish with the highest number of blocked shots in a season since Francois Beauchemin’s 256 blocks in 2015-16, but maybe, just maybe, the Leafs don’t want their $13.4M AAV generational goal scorer with a wonky wrist standing in front of so many pucks.

There are some complications to that rather bold statement of not having your star in a position to get hurt. The first is that the Leafs have started the season off horrifically from a team defence perspective. The Leafs are getting absolutely peppered with shot attempts, averaging 60 shot attempts against (Corsi) per 60 at 5v5, at the same time the Leafs shots against/60 is 26.58, which still isn’t ideal but is middle of the pack at 16th worst in the league, and a sign that blocking shots is helpful, especially when the Leafs aren’t getting the best out of Anthony Stolarz yet (although Thursday showed signs of things improving).

To get at the heart of the issue, the Leafs continue to move further away from being a puck control team and instead are more reliant on establishing an aggressive forecheck. You can see where this has worked well with Matthew Knies, but you can see the rest of the Leafs lineup and where it is still largely a work in progress and often results in handing the puck over to the opposition. Again, more shots, and potentially more moments you don’t want to put Auston Matthews in.

At first thought, this seemed like a potential mandate from Craig Berube. Was this some foolish attempt to get Auston Matthews to play more like Brayden Schenn or Ryan O’Reilly? The answer is no. While both of those players, like Auston Matthews, play with a strong defensive head on their shoulders, neither one of them were prolific shot blockers at any point in their careers. Auston Matthews on the other hand has regularly been in the top 20 forwards for shot blocks in a season and has led the league once and finished second another time in his career. This is an Auston thing that either you really like or think needs to be coached out of him.

The idea of your superstar doing the less flashy things needed to win and having your captain lay it all on the line are certainly encouraging locker room tropes you want to give air to if you Craig Berube and Brad Treliving, but at the same time help has seemingly been brought in with Nicolas Roy and Scott Laughton that there shouldn’t be an expectation of Matthews carrying the defensive centre burden and instead refocusing him on Rocket Richard Trophy aspirations. Auston Matthews, Matthew Knies, and 1st line guest star winger will always be a capable 200 foot line, so perhaps it is time to tell Auston that it’s okay to let Stolarz and/or the defencemen stop a few pucks too.

Ideal vs. likely return for Nick Robertson

Right now, if there was a Leaf that Brad Treliving should be looking to trade, it’s not necessarily Nick Robertson. It’s pretty clear there aren’t any takers on Matt Benning or David Kampf, so this isn’t a suggestion that they should be the targets, but instead this is a meaningful gaze in the direction of Max Domi, Dakota Joshua, and Matias Maccelli, all three who have been just as absent from the scoresheet as Nick Robertson but haven’t shown nearly the effort of the undersized winger.

You could also point on this is as close as a sell high situation as the Leafs will see on Jarnkrok or that Bobby McMann is a perfectly fine winger, but his existence seems to be a perpetual thorn in the side of Craig Berube, but the reality is that Robertson’s name is the one that is out there and that is why he’s being talked about as trade bait. Again.

Darren Dreger’s report that Brad Treliving has talked to interested teams about Robertson sounds promising for Nick. The guy understandably wants a regular spot in a lineup and I’d imagine one that highlights his scoring ability. That doesn’t seem likely on the Leafs now or in the near future. If it was just about what was best for Nick Robertson, he would have been traded already.

Nope, the Leafs need to get something out of this and the Kyle Dubas good will trades that occasionally bit the Leafs on the ass (pour one out for the Marchment for Malgin trade) are a thing of the past. Treliving likely wants some form of asset back and the club certainly would be thrilled to reclaim all of the cap space they can from dealing Robertson as well. That may or may not happen.

As Brad Treliving looks to get his price, it’s very possible that a draft pick is the target. Robertson as a 15-goal scorer with a potential to do more on a cheap contract and only being 24-years of age makes it seem like a third round pick would be ideal, especially if the Leafs aren’t taking anything (other than possibly an AHL contract) back. If the Leafs got that, the deal would be done. If the Leafs were offered a prospect younger than Robertson, even slightly, that they liked, a deal would be done.

It somewhat makes sense that the Leafs aren’t getting an ideal return on Robertson. NHL front offices are privy to even more information than we have and we know that Robertson is streaky, unreliable defensively, and hasn’t been able to stick in the lineup under two coaches. Manageable contract, upside, and 15 goals aside, that stuff makes it hard to get an asking price unless a team is truly desperate and it’s only a couple of weeks into the season.

No, the return is likely to be far more underwhelming for Robertson and with that the question needs to be asked, what is a manageable return.

• Is it a slightly younger player that is a little less proven that is in the NHL and there isn’t a risk of losing them to waivers?
• Is it taking an older player off a rebuilding team that suits the Leafs current needs a little more (i.e. a centre?)
• Is it finding a similar change of scenery type player (revisit the Yegor Chinakhov fan driven trade proposal)
• Is it prioritizing getting Robertson’s contract off the Leafs roster and letting the true return be accruing more cap space until the trade deadline

These all seem far more likely than a Nick Robertson bidding war or a rare hockey trade being completed.

It is possible that Brad Treliving and Nick Robertson’s camp are attempting to handle this urgently. Now that it is out there again, I’m sure they want it resolved for real this time. The problem is that only four or five games out of training camp it’s hard to imagine that many teams are already looking to add to their roster. As teams start panicking about where they will be by American Thanksgiving it seems probably that Robertson departs for the best deal available to Brad Treliving.

Rapid fire reactions through five games

• Easton Cowan is good enough to stay in the NHL…BUT…maybe there is some benefit in him spending some time in the NHL while the rest of the Leafs forward situation is sorted out. There are a lot of potential moving parts and getting Domi a look next to Matthews might be beneficial. It’s also worth noting that Cowan only took one shift in the third period against the Rangers.
• Speaking of Domi, Craig Berube needs to stop playing Domi at centre out of the necessity that Scott Laughton is out. Domi centering a line completely torches the intended makeup of the Leafs bottom six and prevents Max from using the abilities he does have. After an underwhelming 2024-25 and a slow start to this season, the Leafs need to take a serious look at what he is at centre even if that means running some kind of weird Robertson, Lorentz, Jarnkrok or McMann spare part fourth line.
• Speaking of potential fourth liners, maybe letting Dakota Joshua play there for a while to get comfortable wouldn’t be a bad idea.
• And also speaking of fourth liners, Nicolas Roy isn’t one. He needs to be playing more than 11:51 a night with the best possible linemates the team can give him.
• I wouldn’t hate getting a look at an Ekman-Larsson and Carlo pairing while reuniting Morgan Rielly with Philippe Myers for a game or two. This isn’t a knock on Benoit, but more of curiosity about when Rielly and Carlo just can’t click together and if a change is warranted that balances out the pairings a bit more.

I’ll save my curiosity about Sammy Blais and when he’ll play for next week, but I’ll end on the fact that the Leafs have truly been gifted the easiest October possible. Tuesday’s game against the Devils marks the second (and final) matchup of the month against a team that made the playoffs last season. It’s been easy and that’s great for the Leafs who are still very much figuring out who they are this season. Whether it is through staying the course with the lines he wants to see and attempting to build chemistry or using this month as a test kitchen to find what works, my hope is that Craig Berube has a plan in place knowing that the schedule won’t stay this easy forever.