The Pittsburgh Penguins‘ newest forward has already set his own deadline. Nick Robertson filed for salary arbitration ahead of last Sunday’s 5 p.m. deadline, per Pittsburgh Hockey Now and DK Pittsburgh Sports, days after the trade that brought him from Toronto — part of the opening-week roster work covered here on July 5. Hearings league-wide run July 20 through August 1, and the sides can keep negotiating right up until an arbitrator rules.
The mechanics matter more than the drama here. Filing makes Robertson ineligible to sign an offer sheet elsewhere, which removes the one genuinely chaotic outcome from Pittsburgh’s summer in a July when offer sheets have actually been flying. What’s left is a bounded negotiation: either general manager Kyle Dubas and Robertson’s camp agree on a number in the next few weeks, or a neutral party picks one for them.
The relationship predates the trade. Dubas drafted Robertson 53rd overall in 2019 while running Toronto’s front office, then sent a 2028 fourth-round pick to reacquire him this month. Robertson, 24, earned $1.82 million last season and produced 16 goals and 32 points in 78 games — on 11 minutes, 18 seconds of ice time a night. That per-minute scoring is the whole bet: he has never been given a sustained top-nine role in Toronto, and Pittsburgh, in the middle of a deliberate transition, is exactly the team that can afford to find out what he does with one.
My read is that this settles before a hearing. Arbitration briefs are adversarial by design — the club argues the player’s flaws on the record — and Dubas has little reason to open that way with a 24-year-old he has now acquired twice. A short-term deal in line with Pittsburgh’s other moves this summer, none of which run past 2028, would fit the pattern and preserve the flexibility the retool is built on.
For fantasy managers, Robertson is a name to file away rather than draft on reputation. If camp deployment puts him in the top nine with second-unit power-play time, a 20-goal season is in range, and in dynasty formats his age and draft pedigree make him one of the cheaper buy-low wingers in the player pool. Watch where he lines up in September before spending anything.
