trade them for what. The Leafs don't have cap space. A late draft pick I guess? I doubt many teams are going to be excited about the prospect of acquiring Hirvonen, who isn't even top 10 in the Leafs relatively unimpressive prospect pool.
Look at the 2021 draft. Matthew Knies is already an established player while many around him are not. That's kind of how 2nd round picks go, you will hit some years and miss on others. And it's not a videogame where teams are going to care enough about your disappointing prospects to cough up value.
Niemela may get games this year when there are injuries but no team trying to win a Cup is going to gift him a lineup spot with what he's shown so far.
I think the "point" with Robertson is that he's been obviously "ready" to take a spot in an NHL lineup since probably 2021-22; but continues to get bounced around, and that's not good for his development.
This isn't a defenceman from Europe who will almsot always take several years to develop. This is a guy that has been playing "professionaly scheduled" hockey since he was 16.
Topi Niemla is another good example here. Drafted in 2020 forsure keep him in Europe the following year. Wins best defenceman at the World Juniors that year, and was seemingly hurt so didn't get a lot of action thereafter... so keep him another year in Finland sure.
He goes on to play 48 games, put up 32 points,... why exactly aren't we bringing him over after that?!? It's one thing to be patient, it's another to utilize prime development years.
Teams with cup aspirations developing defencemen is hard. There's only 6 spots in the lineup, and you've gotta play upwards of 16 minutes a night... which puts you into a challenge with Niemla.
Now you're into a challenge with Niemla. He's just had a really good year with the Marlies. He should be getting NHL games, but the team has 10 defencemen under contract that likely slot above him; and that's in a year where you are fairly cap-crunched. Next year you're not likely to be cap-crunched... when is Niemla realistically going to get in the lineup?
Bringing this back to Robertson...the guy has shown he can play, but he's a piss-poor fit on a Leafs team that has 2 superstar, but soft, wingers. They take all of the opportunitties that he needs for his game to grow.
So yeah, be a hardass and decline his trade request.... his value isn't going to increase by him playing 12 minutes a night, nor is he ever really going to fit on a line that has Mitch Marner or William Nylander on the other wing.
If the Leafs were smart, they would have probably recognized that Robertson was going to have a tough time fitting in with those 2 a couple of years ago, and traded him when there was a ton of hype on him.
When it comes to drafting talent, yes, you want to take the Best player available... but when it comes time to actually developing them into an NHL player, you've gotta put some weight into thier fit on your team. It's why the Leafs were "right" to consider Matthew Knies untouchable.
