The Toronto Maple Leafs Top Ten Prospects – 2018 Pre-Draft Edition.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have a great group of prospects – even tough they’ve regularly been developing them into NHL players over the last couple of years. You’d think the quality and quantity of prospects would start to taper off, but that’s not really the case.
Sure, there’s no Auston Matthews or Mitch Marner on the upcoming list, but those are franchise players. Compared to most teams, the Leafs still have a pretty great system. And that includes the fact that, in addition to Matthews, Marner, and Nylander, the Leafs prospect list no longer includes Travis Dermott or Kasperi Kapanen.
Nor does it include Justin Holl (too old), Martin Marincin (also too old), or Calle Rosen, Frederick Gauthier or Andreas Bergeman, despite all of these players being among the best players in the AHL and more than capable NHL players. (Even Gauthier could probably make some team’s fourth line).
The last time we did this, it was Christmas. The number one prospect was Timothy LIljegren – and he was not the unanimous #1 choice of our panel this time. Six months later, and lots have changed.
And hey, if you’re super obsessive, check out parts 1 and parts 2 of last year’s top 10. It’s only been a year, but the Leafs have managed to improve – you won’t be seeing Andrew Neilson or Josh Leivo on this upcoming list.
So without further ado, here is your top ten prospect rankings for the Toronto Maple Leafs, courtesy of the Editor in Leaf staff – we polled everyone, discussed and then took turns writing out the profiles.