Matthew Robertson turned into one of the Rangers’ biggest surprises this season, and not because anyone was expecting a breakout. He was supposed to be an afterthought, the kind of player who might have followed the Libor Hajek path. Instead, Robertson carved out a real role, skating in 72 games for New York mostly as the team’s 3LD.
The part that stood out most was how quickly he took hold of that job. Robertson, long known as a smooth skater, had never quite put everything together in the AHL.
But once he was effectively stuck with the Rangers because of waiver requirements, he moved past Urho Vaakanainen for the third-pair left-side spot and didn’t give it back. His skating and transition game helped him hold that role, and eventually he worked his way higher in the lineup too.
The scoring line was another pleasant surprise. Robertson finished his rookie season with 6-12-18, a strong return for a player whose NHL future had taken so long to arrive.
At that point, simply becoming more than a part-time option would have counted as a win. Instead, he gave the Rangers something they badly needed: stability on the bottom pair, plus a cleaner way out of the defensive zone.
That value became even clearer after Carson Soucy was traded and Robertson stepped into the 2LD spot.
What makes Robertson interesting is that his game can be easy to miss in real time. He moves so smoothly with the puck and on his skates that the best plays don’t always jump out. The numbers can look uneven if you zoom in too tightly, especially in the microstats, but the broader picture tells a more consistent story.
Robertson was effective in transition, carrying the puck from the defensive zone into the offensive zone and helping the Rangers move up ice with less stress. That lines up with the positive defensive-zone retrieval and exit numbers in his microstats.
He also showed enough push in the other direction to post solid offensive xGAR and CF/60 figures. On the defensive side, the same transitional strength helped limit quality against, with fewer turnovers per touch showing up in his strong defensive xGAR and xGA/60 numbers.
The result was a steady, low-event defenseman who fits well in a Mike Sullivan system built around low-event hockey from the bottom of the lineup.
There’s also a reason some of the microstats still show a lot of red in his defensive-zone retrievals and exits. The first issue is volume: with his role and ice time, his touch totals are going to sit below league average. The second is that successful exits and exits with possession can be influenced by who a player is sharing the ice with.
Robertson spent most of his time alongside Will Borgen, who logged 439:10 of ice time with him, and Braden Schneider, who was with him for 251:24. His numbers improved significantly away from both.
All told, Robertson was a quietly effective defenseman and one of the more under-the-radar wins of the season for the Rangers. He’s likely to stay in a 3LD role next season, especially now that Marcus Pettersson’s arrival strengthened the second pair. How the Rangers sort through their left-side depth from here will be worth watching.
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