Insider Links Maple Leafs' Nick Robertson to Penguins

Nick Robertson, Leafs forward, has been connected to the Pittsburgh Penguins as a possible landing spot

Now that they've got their last restricted free agent, Nick Robertson, signed, are the Toronto Maple Leafs done for the summer? Certainly not, as noted by insider Elliotte Friedman.

On the 32 Thoughts podcast, Friedman suggested that Leafs GM Brad Treliving still has some moves to make, and even linked the aforementioned Robertson to Toronto's former GM, now with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

I had some people ask me about the possibility of Nick Robertson and Pittsburgh. Obviously, Kyle Dubas knows him. (Toronto) got the arbitration settled on Saturday at $1.825 million.
They’ve got to clear some bodies there, they’ve got a lot of them.

Dubas is the man who drafted Robertson, in the second round back in 2019. But that's not to suggest, by any means, that the two had a successful few years together in the Leafs organization.

After the 18-year-old Robertson made a brief but promising debut in the 2020 playoffs with the Buds, his career took a downturn due to injuries and underperformance for the next few seasons. Dubas left in the summer of 2023, and while Robertson has scored 14 and 15 goals in each of the two seasons since then, he's still not happy with his lot in life in Toronto, as he's averaged under 12 minutes of ice-time with the team.

We know that Dubas's stated goal this year is for the Penguins to get younger, and Robertson, who'll just turn 24 in September, fits that mould that Dubas has been looking for: A potentially promising young player who just needs a fresh start elsewhere.

As Penguins insider Josh Yohe wrote recently in The Athletic: "“I keep going back to what several team sources have told me: Dubas wants to go young next season…remember those words.”

As for the Leafs, and that need to "clear some bodies" as Friedman put it, they've brought in a few top-nine forwards this summer, namely Nicolas Roy, Matias Maccelli and Dakota Joshua, and haven't yet moved out the likes of David Kampf or Calle Jarnkrok, which is a goal for the offseason.

Toronto has just $1.9 million of cap space at the moment, so moving out any of Kampf ($2.4M), Jarnkrok ($2.1M) or the newly-signed Robertson ($1.85M) would give Treliving a little breathing room.

Could Dubas be looking to deal with his old team?