Toronto Maple Leafs Ranked in Bottom Third of NHL Farm Systems

The Toronto Maple Leafs have been ranked a lowly 21st among NHL farm systems.

The rankings come from the Athletic’s Corey Pronman, who is the leading authority on hockey prospects. The Toronto Maple Leafs do not fare well in his rankings.

I won’t be recapping his article here, but I do want to talk about the Leafs farm system and why it’s among the bottom third of the league.

This shouldn’t be a surprise, as the Leafs drafted Nylander, Marner, and Matthews back-to-back-to-back and they’re already in the NHL and among the league’s best players.

Additionally, the Leafs are playing Anderas Johnsson, Kasperi Kapanen, Frederick Guathier, Travis Dermott, and Trevor Moore in their NHL lineup this season, and all were recently members of the Toronto Marlies.

When you’ve got eight players age 23 and under in the NHL who were all recently drafted or playing for your farm team, you can’t expect your farm system to be among the league’s best.

Good, not Great

Still, the Toronto Maple Leafs system isn’t terrible.  If I had to guess, I would say that the reason they ranked so low is that while they’ve got a lot of high-ceiling players, they have very few blue-chippers.

You can pretty much guarantee that Rasmus Sandin is going to be an above average top-four NHL defenseman.

That’s it though for guarantees.

Timothy Liljegren could be a star, he could be a bust, he could be just a bottom pairing journeyman.  High ceiling for sure, but there’s only a small chance he hits his full potential.

Jeremy Bracco looks pretty good, but will he be big enough or fast enough to do what he does in the AHL in the NHL?

Simyen Der-Arguchintsev might never player in the NHL.  He might also hit his full ceiling and become a late-blooming superstar.

The fact is, not only do the Leafs lack high-end prospects due to their incredible run of superstars earlier in the decade and the subsequent success of their NHL team, but they also draft high-risk/high-reward players.

Recent 2nd rounder Nick Robertson is ranked at being on the bubble between being  a “very good player” and just a ‘legit NHL prospect.”  If you consider, however, that he was the youngest player drafted this June, and is just 17, and would not have been drafted until next year if had been two days older, then I think this is a player that be way better than anyone thinks yet.

No first rounder this year, and they drafted a high-ceiling lottery ticket with their second rounder.  Who knows, by next June we could hate this pick, or we could be saying “damn, if Robertson was 2 days older he’d have been a top five pick this year, what a steal for the Leafs.”

Robertson kind of sums up everything about the Leafs current farm system in that he could be lining up next to Matthews two years from now, or maybe by then we’ve forgotten his name.

So while the leading authority on NHL prospects might not see the Leafs as having that great of a system at the moment,  I personally feel like the high reward players give the Leafs a much better position currently than most other teams who have moved passed the rebuilding phase of their NHL team.