Toronto Maple Leafs Top 10 Prospects at the Start of the 2021-22 Season

Top Toronto Maple Leafs Prospects, Honorable Mention

The Leafs may lack blue-chippers, but they make up for it by having so many prospects with potential.  I’ve ranked the top ten using a player’s ceiling as a guide, which means that I’ve ranked players who may be more likely to make it to the NHL lower than players who likely won’t, but who will be impact players if they do.

That doesn’t always apply, but its the guiding principle for my rankings.   As such, some of these honorable mentions may have much better chances of making the NHL as players who are ranked later in the list.

Goalies:

Ian Scott and Joseph Woll are question marks at this point.  Woll is 23, and Scott is 22. Goalies who are in the NHL are completely unpredictable, so trying to guess what becomes of prospect goalies (at least ones who aren’t insanely hyped) is hard to do.

Both players remain solid prospects and should vie for a callup if either of the Leafs main duo goes down for any length of time.

Defense: 

William Villeneuve was picked in the fourth round of the 2020 draft and recently signed an ELC with the Toronto Maple Leafs.  He scored a ton in the Q and has a bright future. I predict he’ll be in the top 10 next year.

Filip Kral is 21, was drafted in 2018 and should get a full year on the Marlies this year, he could potentially be a solid NHL player.

Joseph Duszak is a defenseman who is 24.  We had him on our list last year after he scored 18 points in his first 23 AHL games.  Unfortunately, he did not match that in 2021 and on a prospect ranking list, when you’re 24 and you fall, you fall hard.  He has great offensive instincts and could still be a quality NHLer if given the chance.

Forward:

Roni Hirvonen (2nd round 2020) was the last cut on this list, and will for sure be on it next season, as at least three players in the current top 10 are surely on it for the last time.

Dmitri Ovchinnikov was drafted in 2020, and has played parts of three seasons in the KHL.  Who knows what he is at this point, but some people are very high on his potential. He is definitely a prospect to watch in 2021-22.

Nick Abruzze is 22 and was drafted as an overager in 2019.   He is a very intriguing prospect because he didn’t take the traditional route (he went from the UCHL to Harvard) and also didn’t play at all last year.  Despite all this, he is said to think the game at an elite level and has a ton of potential.

Veeti Miettinen, like almost everyone on this entire list, Miettinen is a small winger with a ton of talent and some questions about his game.  Some people really like him, and he could potentially be an NHL star.  Or this could be the last time you think about it.

Alex Steeves was a college UFA that the Toronto Maple Leafs signed last year. It’s hard to rate college players, but some people really love him too. That is maybe the coolest thing about the Leafs system: so many of their players are really talented in their own special way, which means that someone has strong feelings about almost all of them.

Pavel Gogolov is, according to Mike Jack, the Leafs most underrated prospect.  Undrafted due to his refusal to add a defensive component to his game, the Leafs signed him to an AHL deal where they hope to develop his incredible offensive game into an NHL worthy package.  I’m not sure how you score 96 points in 63 OHL games and don’t get drafted, so I tend to think he must be absolutely brutal defensively, but he’s just a kid, so you’d think teams would want that kind of ability regardless. An intriguing prospect for sure.