Matthew Robertson finally looked like he had cracked the Rangers’ code last season. Now the 25-year-old defenseman is staring at another uphill climb, and this one may be his toughest yet.
Robertson went from being the extra man to a trusted regular in 2025-26, skating in 72 games, averaging more than 17 minutes a night and earning Mike Sullivan’s confidence along the way. By the end of the season, he had worked his way onto the second pair and looked like a player whose NHL future in New York was starting to settle in.
That picture changed fast this summer.
The Rangers poured resources into the left side of the blue line, Robertson’s natural position, and that has put his spot in real danger. They used the fifth overall pick on Alberts Smits and added four more left-shot defensemen in the draft, including prospects taken in the second and third rounds.
Smits is the headliner and a direct threat to Robertson both now and later. Ben MacBeath and the others are not immediate concerns for Robertson, but they deepen the pile.
New York also brought in Marcus Pettersson in a trade with the Vancouver Canucks. Pettersson has a positive history with Sullivan from their Pittsburgh days and is expected to open the season as the left-shot defenseman on the second pair.
That leaves Robertson in a much different spot than the one he occupied at the end of last season. Instead of being penciled in as a top-four option, he now looks like a candidate for third-pair duty at best. There’s even a real path back to the press box as the seventh defenseman.
Smits signed his entry-level contract Wednesday and could start the season at AHL Hartford, though the Rangers clearly have bigger plans for him. He could also force his way onto the roster out of training camp.
Drew Fortescue is another name in the mix. The 21-year-old made a nine-game NHL debut late last season and drew attention with his size, mobility and offensive instincts.
For Robertson, that’s the frustrating part. Smits and Fortescue are the kind of hopeful bets teams make on the future. Robertson was that kind of bet once, too - seven years ago.
The Rangers took him in the second round, No. 49 overall, in the 2019 NHL Draft, and his path since then has been anything but smooth. He has good size at 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, underrated skating ability and some offensive upside, but his progress in Hartford was slowed by injuries and uneven play. A shoulder issue ended his 2022-23 season after 57 games, and his development never moved in a straight line.
Still, Robertson kept grinding. He played 250 games in the AHL, worked with a sports psychologist and finally got his NHL debut late in the 2024-25 season. Last year, he made the opening-night roster as the seventh defenseman and then got his real opening when Carson Soucy was injured in the third game of 2025-26.
Robertson made the most of it. He stepped into a 1-0 loss to the Washington Capitals on Oct. 12 and quickly became a fixture.
When Soucy returned, Robertson stayed in the lineup and pushed Urho Vaakanainen into the press box. Sullivan used him in every situation, including overtime and the penalty kill, and Robertson’s skating gave a sluggish defense some badly needed movement.
The numbers backed up the eye test. He finished with a 49.8 expected goal share, and the Rangers out-chanced opponents 505-492 at 5-on-5 with Robertson on the ice, according to Natural Stat Trick. Among Rangers regular defensemen, only Adam Fox and Vladislav Gavrikov posted a better expected goal share.
He also chipped in six goals and 12 assists and ended the year on the second pair. For a player who had spent years fighting just to get a real chance, it looked like the breakthrough had finally arrived.
But the roster math has turned against him again. Gavrikov and Pettersson are signed long term through 2032 and 2031, respectively.
Smits is coming fast, Fortescue is in the picture, and Vaakanainen is still around competing for left-side minutes. Robertson may need injuries, poor play from others and a little more luck just to match the role he carved out last season.
There’s also the contract wrinkle. Robertson is in the final year of the two-year, $1.63 million deal he signed in June 2025. If he plays six games in 2026-27, he will no longer be eligible for Group 6 unrestricted free agency next summer and will instead become a restricted free agent on July 1.
For now, the Rangers are asking Robertson to do what he’s done his whole career: keep fighting for the next chance. The difference is that this time, after seven years of climbing and clawing, the margin for error is even thinner.
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