Stuart Percy: Maple Leafs Prospect Ready To Go

Every week throughout the NHL season and off-season, we will be updating you on the development, potential and realistic expectations for key Toronto Maple Leafs prospects with up-to-date stats, analysis and scouting reports.

In a earlier edition of the prospect report we looked at the Leafs top prospect at each position, Stuart Percy was my pick for the D. As such we’ve done a small report on him already, which you can read here.

Getting To Know Stuart Percy:

Age: 21

Position: Defence

Height / Weight: 6ft 1 / 193lbs

Shoots: Right

Drafted: Round 1, 25th Overall, 2011 NHL Entry Draft

Contract Status: 1 Year Remaining, 833K, RFA at the end of next season

League / Team: AHL / Toronto Marlies

Leafs TV personality Paul Hendrick had this to say about Stuart Percy:

"His cool and calm defies his age, and his passing ability under pressure is off the charts. Those traits saw Percy open with the big club last October where he responded with an assist in each of his first three games. Percy played nine games for the Leafs, all serving as a stepping stone for making the jump on a permanent basis next season."

Stuart Percy is a “safe” prospect. What I mean by that is his skill sets, attitude and work ethic are fairly easy to project into the NHL as a very solid contributor on the blue line. He will be an NHL regular and have a solid career in the NHL, for the Leafs or another organization. The only real question is how high will Stuart Percy rise?

He has the vision, passing awareness, defensive acumen and skating ability to easily slot onto the bottom pairing next season with a more seasoned pro like Roman Polak/Stephan Robidas and thrive. It’s just a matter of whether he will ever rise any higher on the depth chart than that.

During his early season stint with the Leafs he briefly surpassed Gardiner, Rielly and Franson on the power play depth chart because of his play making vision and passing ability, but also because of his calm under pressure.

“It was a great experience being up there and a lot of fun. It was everything you dream about and worked so hard for, and I now realize it’s a reachable goal.” – Stuart Percy

The number of times he got the puck out of the defensive zone by calmly pivoting away from a fore-checker and then sending a pass up the boards was astounding. Not necessarily because of how amazing Stuart Percy was at doing so – although he is – as much as it was just so confusing why none of the other Leafs defenders could carry out the same task.

For years now the Leafs defensive zone has been a place of panic, confusion and sheer terror as with any kind of sustained fore-check the Leafs collectively begin to treat the puck like a bomb that they do not know how to handle. Stuart Percy, somehow, even though he is a young rookie, manages to calm that defensive zone down and make the simple play. That is a skill set the Leafs are sorely lacking and Stuart Percy will provide it for the foreseeable future.

NHL Upside: Stuart Percy

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