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Nick Robertson takes shot at Leafs top-six

Toronto forward Nick Robertson has impressed during Leafs preseason, scoring multiple goals, and the 21-year-old is making his case for a role on a top-six line with John Tavares and William Nylander.

Video Transcript

- Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of In the Mentions. I'm TicTacTOmar. And it seems like the one least player that we've all been focused on trying to see how they would do in the pre-season and so on and so forth is actually separating themselves from the rest of the group. Of course, I am talking about Nick Robertson, who according to Sheldon Keefe, has played his best set of games, I believe period, which is a significant thing to say, especially coming from, one, the Leafs' head coach, and, two, from a player that really wanted to take a big step in the right direction.

And this year, with the second line spot next to Tavares and Nylander being up in the air and all the other competitions going around it, it's pretty solid to see Robertson separate himself a little bit. His last couple of games specifically had been the best-- aside from the production because, again, when it comes to Robertson, we expect the production. His shot is ridiculous. It's fast. It's accurate. He's beat players, he's beat goaltenders five hole. He's had these nice posted end goals. But again, that's what we expect of him.

The other stuff has actually been pretty solid. His compete, his effort, his speed. I don't know if you've been paying attention, but his foot speed seems legitimate, like it's taken a next step. The fact that he can make contact, take contact from other players but not lose stride so much, can still find ways to make plays, and starting to direct the flow of the game a little bit, this is a confident player that we're seeing. And again, in this year where the competition is wild-- remember, for the longest time and even still now, Denis Malgin has gotten a lot of attention from Leafs' fans and the Leafs' brass all together.

But Robertson is making things complicated. I mean, before you could argue, OK, maybe Malgin will get the spot with Nylander and Tavares, or Nylander and Kerfoot in this case, because Tavarez isn't going to start the season on time, but now it's a real possibility that Robertson can get that role instead. And the only thing that kind of gets in Robertson's way is the fact that he doesn't need waivers. So if Malgin doesn't make the team, for example, he'll need to clear waivers to make it to the [INAUDIBLE]. And considering the pre-season he's had, I don't think he clears either.

So it'll be really interesting to see how the rest of this battle for that second line spot goes between Robertson and Malgin. But either way, whether Robertson is on the team day one, I think he's going to end up being in a Leafs jersey at some point in the season because you can't deny what he's been able to do so far.