Maple Leafs Make Surprising Lineup Move

With just six goals in their last three games—all of them losses—the Toronto Maple Leafs have made somewhat of a surprising lineup move ahead of their Monday night matchup with the Winnipeg Jets. Head coach Craig Berube will be making Nick Robertson a healthy scratch.

Sure, he has only one goal in nine games this season, but he is one of the potential secondary scorers on this team, something they are in need of. Robertson has also been bringing the effort on the other side of the puck as well.

But Berube's reasoning is as such:

He's been fine. Like, I think Nicky's worked extremely hard. He obviously hasn't had much puck luck and just missed shots and things like that. But, he's done a lot of good things. It's just, with Winnipeg tonight, it's a pretty big team. You wanted some size in the lineup tonight.

Pontus Holmberg will draw into the lineup in his stead.

This move will do nothing to calm the waters around Robertson, who had a testy offseason, declining to sign as a restricted free agent for several months, until they finally persuaded him that he would have more of an opportunity this season than he's had in the past. He inked a one-year, $875,000 contract just a week or so before training camp.

Robertson had been frustrated with the lack of opportunity he's gotten in Toronto since being selected in the second round of the 2019 NHL Draft. Of course, constant injury troubles have probably been as much of a culprit in his lack of time on the NHL roster as anything.

In addition to his one goal this season in 12:54 of ice time per game (that is a career-high for him), the 23-year-old has a plus/minus rating of +2. But his shot percentage is at a career low, at just 6.7%.