No. 5: Mikko Kokkonen
You may or may not be familiar with Kokkonen, but other teams and scouts around the NHL definitely are.
Kokkonen shined at the World Junior Championships, winning a bronze medal with Team Finland. Not only was he apart of a medal winning team, but he was named as one of the team’s top three players in the tournament.
If you look at Kokkonen’s stats, you’re not going to see many goals and assists. However, that’s not the left-handed shooting defenseman’s style. Instead, he’s a very reliable player who is great at getting the puck up the ice.
He would be perfect in the Leafs system down the road, because Toronto is very ahead of their time with puck possession importance, but you’d have to think he’d draw a ton of interest in a trade.
Although the Leafs would prefer to keep him, he’s the type of steady defensive prospect that an opposing general manager would love to have in their system.