Four young players on the Maple Leafs, Canucks and Oilers haven't developed as planned. Could they benefit from a change of scenery ahead of the NHL trade deadline?
Four young players on the Maple Leafs, Canucks and Oilers haven't developed as planned. Could they benefit from a change of scenery ahead of the NHL trade deadline?
Every team has that one polarizing prospect.
That one prospect who divides a fan base into two halves – one clinging to the player's perceived upside and the team's inability to maximize it, while another ignores the forest beyond the trees and hones in on the prospect's shortcomings.
Surely, those same debates or taking place within NHL front offices as the deadline approaches and teams identify which chips they’ll deal. But there’s always a resounding fear of giving up on a player too early.
Owen Tippett is a prime example. After the 2017 10th overall selection failed to solidify himself as an NHLer in his first three pro seasons, the Florida Panthers dealt Tippett ahead of the 2021-22 deadline in a blockbuster that brought them Claude Giroux.
Two years later, Tippett is a franchise pillar in Philly. And Giroux bolted for the Ottawa Senators in free agency, leaving the cap-strapped Panthers with nothing and perhaps even a feeling of regret.
But there’s another side to the argument. Opportunity is key for a lot of players and it was almost impossible to foresee Tippett becoming the player that he has, had he stayed with the Panthers.
Without further adieu, here are four polarizing prospects that could be dealt ahead of the 2024 NHL trade deadline.
Nicholas Robertson, Toronto Maple Leafs
It wasn’t long ago that Nicholas Roberston looked destined to become an impact NHL player.
Fresh off scoring 55 goals in the OHL with the Peterborough Petes, Robertson, then 18, made his NHL debut with the Toronto Maple Leafs during the 2019-20 playoff bubble. Robertson, the 53rd overall pick in 2019, dressed in four of Toronto’s five playoff games, recording one goal and catching everybody's attention given how effective he was at forechecking NHL players as a 5-foot-9 teenager.
But given how much of a rollercoaster the next few years were, Robertson’s coming-out party feels like a distant memory.
Knee, fibula and shoulder injuries limited Robertson to just 82 games over his first three pro seasons — 31 of which were in the NHL. Even though he had dominant spurts in the AHL, all the stops and starts hindered him from rounding out his game.
Today, we’re seeing the consequence of that.
Since spending most of his time with the Leafs since the start of the 2022-23 season, Robertson has failed to gain the trust of Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe. The 22-year-old has been pigeon held for a while now, as he hasn’t proven to be good enough for the top six or power play while also not bringing any value to the bottom six, either.
As good as Robertson's raw tools are, he hasn’t been able to put them all together at the NHL level. He takes too long to unload his wrist shot, and his eight goals and 19 points in 41 NHL games this year haven’t been good enough to offset his defensive shortcomings. While his playmaking, a previous weak spot of his, has improved in recent years – his overall style of play, as of right now, isn’t conducive to helping a team in meaningful games.
It’s hard to foresee a scenario where Robertson can free himself from Keefe’s doghouse anytime soon. And the longer this drags on, the harder it’ll be for Toronto ever to get anything in return for Robertson.
That said, if the Leafs do find a way to move Robertson, it won’t net them anything glamorous.
Vasili Podkolzin, Vancouver Canucks
Vasili Podkolzin has been leapfrogged in Vancouver.
After recording 14 goals and 26 points as a 20-year-old rookie, the 2019 10th overall selection has spent most of the last two seasons in the AHL. Podkolzin made his NHL season debut on Sunday after seeing AHL teammates Nils Aman, Arshdeep Bains, Linus Karlsson and Jack Studnicka receive call-ups before him.
When the Canucks initially sent him down to Abbotsford early on last season, they did so with the hope Podkolzin would evolve his offensive game.
“The one thing identified with watching him at the NHL level was he played a really safe game,” Abbotsford Canucks GM Ryan Johnson said in an interview with The VANcast last spring.
Since being re-assigned to the AHL last season, Podkolzin has recorded just 46 points in 72 games. Nothing that screams top-six talent — at least anytime soon.
Podkolzin is a very fundamentally sound, responsible forward. But to hit that next gear and become more than just a bottom-six forward, he needs to be with an organization that can afford to give him some leash at the NHL level. The Canucks are in win-now mode, and even if they weren’t, it’s clear, given where Podkolzin is on the call-up order, he’s lower on their priority list.
It’s hard to imagine Podkolzin, a pending RFA, would want to re-sign in Vancouver if his pathway to an NHL job remains murky.
There’s surely an NHL player within Podkolzin, but it’s hard to foresee him becoming that with Vancouver. Flipping Podkolzin for any sort of asset capital would be a shrewd move by a Vancouver club that just gave up an arm and a leg in draft picks for Elias Lindholm.
Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg, Edmonton Oilers
With the uncertainty surrounding Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid’s future in Edmonton beyond the next two seasons, the Oilers have no choice but to go all-in. That may lead to them selling low on two former first-round picks, Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg, whose stocks have dropped.
Holloway, the 14th overall selection in 2020, is a talented young speedster who has combined for just 13 points in 82 games while being buried in Edmonton’s bottom six over the last two years. You could argue that graduating him to the NHL last season was premature, as he probably could’ve benefited from more AHL seasoning. But Holloway is a responsible player who thinks the game well, has a high compete level and is not a liability when he’s not producing offense.
There’s so much more untapped potential there. On one hand, the Oilers should ride it out and hope he takes a big leap next year. On the other hand, one ought to wonder how they can reasonably expect Holloway to progress when his ice time is so scarce.
“When you look at Edmonton, he’s the only one of their young NHL players that teams would be interested in,” one NHL scout told The Hockey News.
The risk with giving up Holloway is that the Oilers are going to desperately need contributing players on entry-level contracts in the not-so-distant future. The question is, though, will he ever be able to hit that next gear in Edmonton?
Philip Broberg, the eighth overall selection in 2019, is a 22-year-old Swedish defenseman whose stock — internally and externally – has plummeted over the last three seasons. Through that span, the Oilers have yo-yoed him between the AHL — where he has thrived as an all-situations No. 1 defenseman — and the NHL — where his confidence has dropped. Broberg is a pretty good skater with solid two-way instincts and defensive ability — but his confidence is in the gutter.
“They’ve broken the kid down,” another NHL scout told The Hockey News. “Whenever he’d make one mistake, they’d glue him to the bench right away. It’s hard for a young guy to find his way when you’re second guessing every play you make.”
Selling Broberg now would be waving the white flag on a player the team selected over Trevor Zegras and Matt Boldy. While that’ll be hard for any front office to swallow, refusing to cut bait is nothing short of a sunk-cost fallacy.