The Rangers have come to terms on a new one-year deal for RFA defender Matthew Robertson, the team announced Monday. It’s a two-way deal, per Mollie Walker of the New York Post.
Robertson, 23, was coming off the final season of his entry-level contract. He’ll stick around in the Big Apple for at least another season while he tries to get what was once a promising development path back on track.
The 2019 second-round pick carries appealing size at 6’4″ and 201 lbs, but the left-shot defender hasn’t yet been able to work his way up to making his NHL debut. He received a handful of call-ups last season as injury insurance but didn’t get into any game action. He’s displayed solid puck-moving ability while on assignment to AHL Hartford, totaling 55 points over 190 games during his three professional campaigns. But like most of his teammates over the past few years, he hasn’t had a standout impact defensively, posting a cumulative -25 rating and never logging anything better than a -7.
With Erik Gustafsson out of the picture from last season’s defense group, there’s a little bit of increased opportunity for depth defenders in the Rangers organization. Robertson will hope to take advantage of that, but he’ll need to jockey for positioning with some more experienced names slated for minor-league action to start the year, such as Connor Mackey and UFA addition Casey Fitzgerald.
Robertson will be an RFA again next summer upon expiry.
Would like to see him get some time at the NHL level, but he’d be fighting with Jones and Ruhwedel for a roster spot. If Trouba could be moved, then his odds of making it improve, but that’s not happening this summer.