Why Rangers’ Matthew Robertson faces big challenge to keep lineup spot
For young New York Rangers defenseman Matthew Robertson, the road to being an NHL regular went right back to being bumpy again this summer.
Robertson isn’t all that young by NHL standards — at 25, he’s entering only his second full season in the League. That is, if Robertson makes the Rangers’ roster at all, a season after he played 72 games, averaged more than 17 minutes per contest, and earned the trust of coach Mike Sullivan.
Perhaps both fortunately and unfortunately, it’s nothing Robertson isn’t used to at this point.
The Rangers’ second-round pick (No. 49 overall) in the 2019 NHL Draft was all but written off before last season — if not completely wearing the bust label, then pigeonholed by the organization as a spare part at best. But after proving himself a reliable regular, Robertson faces a stiff challenge to reprise that role in 2026-27.
Rangers added numerous long-term options at Matthew Robertson’s position
That’s because the Rangers invested heavily on the left side of their defense — Robertson’s natural spot — during the past few weeks. They selected Alberts Smits with the fifth overall selection, and added four other left-shot defensemen, in this year’s draft, including prospects in the second and third rounds. Smits directly affects Robertson in both the short and long term. Ben MacBeath and the others are of no concern to Robertson right now.
The Rangers also acquired steady left-sider Marcus Pettersson in a trade with the Vancouver Canucks. Pettersson has a positive history with Sullivan from their days together with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and should slot in as the left-shot on the second defense pair this coming season.
All of it means Robertson, who finished last season as the de facto left-side defender on the second pair, is expected to challenge for, at best, a third-pair role next season. There’s the chance he ends up where he started off a year ago — as the extra (seventh) defenseman.
Smits signed his entry-level contract Wednesday and could begin the season at AHL Hartford, though the organization obviously has big plans for him, and he could even win a job out of training camp. Then there’s Drew Fortescue, the 21-year-old who made a nine-game NHL cameo debut late last season and intrigued with his mix of size, mobility and offensive instincts.
Smits and Fortescue, a third-round pick by the Rangers in 2023, represent hopeful bets on the future of the left side of the defense. What must be at least somewhat disheartening for Robertson, particularly after last season, is that he was precisely that as well — seven years ago.
Robertson has good size (6-foot-4, 210 pounds), underrated skating ability and some offensive upside, not to mention an impressive draft pedigree. His struggles to get on an upward trajectory at Hartford after turning pro, however, are well-documented. He dealt with numerous injuries, including a shoulder problem that ended his 2022-23 season after 57 games, and his results were uneven when he was healthy and playing regularly over the years.
Yet the Edmonton native showed his resilient nature through it all, continuing to plug away with the Wolf Pack — he played 250 games in the AHL — and working with a sports psychologist. After a long-awaited NHL debut late in the 2024-25 season, Robertson made the Rangers’ opening-night roster as the seventh defenseman last season.
It appeared he finally got a break when veteran Carson Soucy sustained an injury during the third game of 2025-26. Stepping in with little expected of him, Robertson made a solid season debut in a 1-0 loss to the Washington Capitals on Oct. 12, then went about establishing himself as a lineup staple. When Soucy returned, Robertson remained in the lineup, bumping Urho Vaakanainen from the third pair to the press box.
Sullivan liked Robertson, eventually playing him in all situations, including overtime and on the penalty kill. With his strong skating, he brought desperately-needed mobility to a plodding defense corps. Despite some predictable growing pains, Robertson posted a 49.8 expected goal share, with the Rangers out-chancing opponents 505-492 at 5-on-5 with Robertson on the ice, per Natural Stat Trick. Outside of top-pair stalwarts Adam Fox and Vladislav Gavrikov, Robertson’s expected goal share was best among Rangers regulars on the blue line in 2025-26.
Through persistence and the kind of opportunity most players need to find their way into a consistent role, it looked like the arrow was finally pointing up for Robertson, who recorded six goals and 12 assists last season, and closed out on the second pair. Now, it’s pointing down at the third pair, or at more time as a healthy scratch (Robertson isn’t waiver-exempt, so the Rangers could lose him for nothing if they try to send him to the minors), with his long-term future in the organization looking to be in serious doubt again.
Matthew Robertson’s 2025-26 development doesn’t guarantee lineup spot
Gavrikov and Pettersson are inked to long-term contracts through 2032 and 2031, respectively. Smits is on the way in short order and Fortescue is in the mix as well. All of it means Robertson appears to need even more “luck” – probably in the form of injuries to the veterans and ineffectiveness from the prospects – to come close to duplicating his role from last season. He may be little more than a placeholder now for Smits, Fortescue or someone else. There’s also Vaakanainen, who seemed to fall out of favor with Sullivan last season but will also be competing for left-side time.
With one season left on the two-year, $1.63 million contract he signed in June 2025, Robertson’s lack of NHL opportunity to this point in his career is reflected in the fact he has an outside chance of gaining unrestricted free agency via Group 6 qualification next summer. If he plays six games in 2026-27, he’ll no longer be eligible for that distinction and will become a restricted free agent July 1. It’s a fair guess, though, that Robertson would prefer to blow right past that six-game threshold because he turns out to be an ongoing presence in the Rangers’ lineup.
The fact that the Blueshirts picked up a well-earned reputation as an organization that struggles to properly develop young defensemen – K’Andre Miller found stardom after being traded to the Carolina Hurricanes last summer, and 2020 first-round pick Braden Schneider isn’t living up to his promise, for example – adds another twist to Robertson’s halting career.
Drafted by the previous front-office regime led by then-general manager Jeff Gorton, and beset by injuries, a slow developmental path and bad timing, Robertson must continue overcoming obstacles to remain relevant in New York. It’s nothing he didn’t face before, but after seven years of painstakingly working his way into being an everyday NHLer, it looks as if he’ll face his greatest challenge to maintain that status this fall.
