Film Room: Eric Robinson Thriving in Expanded Role

Signed to a one-year deal for under a million dollars in July, Eric Robinson is giving the Canes a massive return on investment— and earning more opportunity.

When the Carolina Hurricanes signed Eric Robinson to a one-year contract on July 1 over the summer, the signing was met with minimal excitement, to say the least.

Projected as a depth player before earning a full-time lineup spot in training camp, the 29-year-old had toiled on the Columbus Blue Jackets and Buffalo Sabres to the tune of 91 career points in 306 contests.

It would be easy to look at that large of a sample of solid but unspectacular production and assume that while he’s playing well so far in Carolina, his 9 points in 14 games with a plus-12 rating to start this season may be a bit of a product of the team’s strong play as a whole.

That would not be the case. Robinson is not only not a total passenger in the success of his lines and the team, he’s driving it, and he’s doing so to a much larger degree than you might realize.

Monday night’s win over the Vegas Golden Knights was a prime example. He scored the first goal of the game on a re-direct of a Sean Walker shot from the point, but it was the Jesperi Kotkaniemi goal that made it 2-0 on which he got a secondary assist that stood out to me.

This play is a total effort by the whole line, but the highest level play comes from Robinson to spring the counter-attack. Let’s take a look at some key frames on this play to see exactly how it swung toward a crucial 2-0 goal.

In the slide above, Jesperi Kotkaneimi is engaging in breaking up the zone entry by former Hurricane Nicolas Roy. Necas is circling back toward the puck at the bottom of the screen, and Robinson at the top of the screen has sensed an opportunity to leave his man and make a play.

Roy’s off balance, and Robinson has made one of the more underrated plays in hockey. Here, he’s using one hand to re-direct the puck in a way that perfectly hits Necas in stride and puts Vegas on its back foot. He could have come in and laid the body or even gone for a two-handed gather to start himself, but he made a quick and conscious choice to make the highest-reward play. This general mindset is something that has clearly held the Hurricanes back in the playoffs and in general in recent years, and the frequency with which these sorts of plays are being made this year is the single most positive sign about this team’s potential to break through.

This sort of intentional deflection or re-direction of the puck, sometimes called hook passes, in the neutral zone is a weapon that the smartest players in the league are utilizing more and more to spark dangerous transition opportunities. If you watch the Florida Panthers long enough, you’ll see Sam Reinhart make these sorts of plays frequently. There are a lot of guys out there like this, but he’s the current king of small, dangerous high-IQ stick plays.

In this instance, it’s perfect because of the momentum Necas has already built up. I don’t know if Necas was anticipating Robinson making this play, but he reads it quickly enough to recognize the re-direction, gather the puck and go. This puts Noah Hanifin and Alex Pietrangelo in brutal defensive position, as within a second they’ve gone from getting ready to join on a zone entry to having defend Necas with numbers and a full head of steam.

Robinson makes the next right play and quickly matches Necas’ speed to continue to stress Hanifin and Pietrangelo. Kotkaniemi’s posture when stopping Roy at the blue line had him ready to join the rush, and (crucially) Roy was sent to the ice as he sprung out his right leg in an attempt to stop Robinson’s deflection to Necas. That made it a true three-on-two with, again, the two defensemen flat-footed having to defend a sudden change odd-man rush.

This was noted immediately by Tripp Tracy on the broadcast, but Robinson doesn’t slow his momentum and executes a perfect center lane drive. With Roy slowed, there’s no backchecking help to defend Kotkaniemi, and with Hanifin engaged with Robinson it’s a simple pass and shot play for Necas and Kotkaniemi. The first one was saved, but again Kotkaniemi has all the space and time in the world to get the rebound and score because by the end of the play, Robinson has tied up both defensemen on the left side of the crease.

It’s a goal for Kotkaniemi and a primary assist for Necas, and while it’s true that secondary assists are typically less reflective of skill than their counterparts, this is an example of why you can’t totally throw those numbers out. Robinson makes the play with the highest degree of difficulty to deflect the puck past Roy right to Necas, keeps his speed through the neutral zone, and engages not only Hanifin but eventually Pietrangelo as well simultaneously to enable Kotkaniemi for an easy finish.

The numbers so far for Robinson are reflective of a strong string of play typified by performances like the one above.

Among regular forwards, he’s 19th in the NHL with 3.23 5-on-5 points per 60 minutes. It’s being buoyed by a high on-ice shooting percentage that is likely to regress, but the Canes are controlling play with Robinson on the ice.

As long as Robinson continues to provide the blend of speed, physicality, and hockey IQ that he’s shown through the first month of the season, the Hurricanes will be thrilled with the investment they made in a player that was clearly undervalued over the off-season. He’s also the exact sort of glue guy that a player like Necas needs to continue to thrive.