Toronto Maple Leafs: Highs and Lows of the Prospect Cycle

The Toronto Maple Leafs will see a number of their young enticing prospects make permanent leaps to the NHL next season.

For any team, this is great news. A testament to the talent evaluation and scouting acumen of their staff. As the Cap-Era continues to apply the process of roster construction with financial pressure, skilled prospects on ELC’s have become valuable commodities in fostering depth.

Show me a loaded farm system and, chances are, I’ll show you a Cup contender soon after.

Only, there’s a catch. Reaching contention requires a pillaging of the farm system, leaving a far weaker crop in its wake. Like the sport itself, this is a cycle:

Draft well, accumulate prospects, develop said prospects on the farm, then surrender them to the parent club. Rinse, repeat. Few teams are immune to this and the Leafs are no exception.

So, as their kids ascend to the big leagues in 2018-19, the Leafs find themselves on the cycle’s final step. Their farm system is more barren than ever and prospects have ceased being their organizational strength.

Honestly, that’s okay. It doesn’t mean nothing of is value left.

Timothy Liljegren is a blue chipper with all the makings of a top-four D. Now an AHL sophomore, Jeremy Bracco sits primed for a breakout year. Carl Grundstrom, knocking on the door, has performed admirably in his brief exposure to North American ice, while the intelligence of newcomer Rasmus Sandin‘s game lends confidence to his NHL future.

They’re a respectable bunch, albeit lacking one specific thing.

What the Leafs don’t currently possess is a monster. A prospect whose grainy junior footage racks up 15K Twitter likes on a routine basis and attracts responses solely in the form of fire emojis

Auston Matthews used to do that, as did Mitch Marner and William Nylander.

Two years ago, Toronto’s farm system consisted of the Big Three, supported by an effective second tier of Connor Brown, Zach Hyman and Kasperi Kapanen. The next season brought forth emergences in Travis Dermott and Andreas Johnsson who picked up where their departed counterparts left off.

Together, the group’s potential competed with any in the league.

Pipelines are generally graded on their ability to produce potential NHL contributors. Well, each name of prior mention is now either a solidified contributor at the NHL level or actively transitioning into one come October.

The cycle did its job.

In gifting the Leafs a marvellous young core, it built a contention window in the process, one of limitless length. And really, isn’t that the point? You draft prospects for the purpose of using them, and that happens to be exactly what the Leafs have done.

Then again, they not immune to blame.

Lacklustre 2016 and 2017 draft classes, outside of the first round, has done little to prepare the Leafs for their impending loss of youth. Whether Mark Hunter spun gold in his final two go-arounds at the draft may take years to determine, although early results indicate it’s unlikely.

So, now we wait.

The key to the cycle’s completion is an adherence to following each step, the first in this case being, “draft well”. Clearly, the Leafs managed to accomplish this, which bears responsibility for their current situation.

Whether their recent adherence will be good enough to keep them there? Only time will tell. Fans just shouldn’t panic over their relative lack of blue chips.

Thanks for reading!