Toronto Maple Leafs Top Ten Prospects 2019 (Part 2)

1. Rasmus Sandin

The left-shooting Sandin was selected 29th overall in this year’s NHL Entry Draft, and he rocketed past Timothy Liljegren to become the Toronto Maple Leafs top prospect.

Small for a defenseman at 5’11 183, Sandin makes up for it with his high skill level.

The 2018 NHL Draft was the first one that GM Kyle Dubas ran on his own, so it seemed fitting that he selected a defenseman from the team he used to manage, the Sault St. Marie Greyhounds.

The Toronto Maple Leafs traded down from 25th Overall and selected Sandin at 29th, and so far it’s looking like a very, very good pick. The 18 year old Swede is currently in his first season with the Toronto Marlies and has 10 points in 18 games so far, and just recently represented Sweden at the World Juniors where he put up four points in five contests.

He plays a very safe game and has a high level of hockey IQ, so like Liljegren, it’s almost without a doubt Sandin will become a mainstay on the Maple Leafs top four eventually.

When all is said and done, the Maple Leafs have a strong prospect system and have lots of promise in terms of youngsters looking to sport the blue and white in the future. While they may lack players with high end skills, that is because they recently graduated at least three elite players from prospect to NHL player (Marner, Matthews and Nylander) as well as current NHLers Trevor Moore, Frederik Gauthier, Travis Dermott, Garrett Sparks, Connor Brown and Andreas Johnsson.

And those are just the players the Leafs drafted, as they have also graduated Zach Hyman and Kasperi Kapanen from the Marlies to the Leafs.

Thanks for reading!

All statistics obtained from www.eliteprospects.com and www.hockeydb.com