Toronto Maple Leafs 2021 Draft Review: One Year Later

It’s draft season for the Toronto Maple Leafs!

As we’re all excited for the 2022 NHL draft and most importantly, who the Toronto Maple Leafs will pick. figured I’d take a look back at last years draft and see how the prospects have performed thus far.

As most drafts go, it takes some time to see how draft picks pan out. Unless you’re picking in the top-five or top-ten most picks themselves take anywhere from three years or more to even make the NHL, let alone hit their peak.

However, it’s good to look back periodically and keep updated on how the draft picks pan out post-draft. In the case of their 2021 Class, the Toronto Maple Leafs picks seem to look much better only one year later.

They only had three selections: Matthew Knies (second round, 57th overall), Ty Voit (fifth round, 153rd overall), and Vyacheslav Peksa (sixth round, 185th overall).

At the time, they were met with very little optimism by most people. It’s hard to “win the draft” when you only have three picks and by no means is anyone claiming they did only year out. So, let’s take a look at who they took and how they’ve progressed so far. (stats hockeyreference.com).

Matthew Knies

Pos: LW

Team: University of Minnesota (NCAA)

Size: 6’3 205 lbs

After being drafted in the second round, I did some digging into Knies. Looking at the previous two seasons, his numbers didn’t jump off the page. He amassed 45 points in 44 games in his DY-1 and 42 points in 44 games in his DY. A slight regression in points, something you don’t really like to see but, after reading that he had come down with Covid-19 part way through his draft year, I was willing to look past it.

This year, he blew away any doubts. In 33 games with the University of Minnesota, Knies scored 15 goals and 18 assists for 33 points. This put him fifth in points per-game in the NCAA among 2021 draft picks. Even more impressive, the only players ahead of him were: Matty Beniers, Kent Johnson, Matthew Coronato, and Josh Doan. Three of those players were top-fifteen picks and the other, Doan, was a second rounder picked 20 picks ahead of Knies.

He’s a hitting machine, who loves to use his large frame (6-3, 205lbs) to dominate the opposition. He’s a prototypical power forward type player with some pretty high-end skill. If he can continue to progress, he might even be able to wear a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater when his college season is over next year.

Vyacheslav Peksa

Pos: G

Team: Irbis Kazan (MHL)

Size: 6’2 163lbs

Drafted as an over-ager, at the time the Peksa pick was puzzling.

He played 17 games in the MHL (Russian Junior League) and had a .909% save percentage. This put him 27th in save percentage amongst U-19 goalies who played 10 or more games,.

In his time in the MHL, he also played a backup role to Leafs prospect, Artur Akhtyamov who was a year older and had significantly better numbers (.935% in 9 games).

However, this year he proved exactly why the Leafs took a flyer on him. Back again in the MHL, Peksa played in 56 games, the 3rd most in the league. Most impressively, it was by far the most on his team as no other goalie played more than 4. In those games, he held a .936% save percentage, good for 3rd in the league.

For context, the goalie in first place held a .939% but only played in 37 games and the goalie in second had a .938% but only played in 20. Overall, it was  a really impressive season for Peksa. He should be able to carve out a permanent role in the VHL (2nd-tier pro league in Russia) next year and maybe even feature in a few games in the KHL, similarly to Akhytamov this season.

So, one year out, the Leafs 2021 draft haul seems to have been an exercise in quality over quantity. After the 11 picks they made at the 2020 draft, Dubas and Co. could afford a smaller draft list. But, the Leafs will likely try to avoid only calling three names at the draft table going forward even if it seems to have worked out so far.