Toronto Maple Leafs: Due For Late Round Star to Breakout Eventually
The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t turned a late-round draft pick into a star player this century.
The last player who the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted outside of the first round who went onto be a star player was Tomas Kaberle.
Kaberle was taken in the 8th round of the 1996 NHL Entry Draft and went on to play almost 1000 games in the NHL, and is one of the best Leafs defenseman of all-time.
Kaberle is an icon for Leafs fans of a certain age, but he’s also symbolic of something the Leafs have been unable to do now for almost 20 years – fluke into a star player outside of the top of the draft.
The Toronto Maple Leafs Are Due!
Tampa is on the verge winning their third Cup in a row, and the fact that they got their franchise goalie at 19th overall, while finding Kucherov in the second round, and Brayden Point in the 3rd round is the main reason. (info and stats hockeydb.com).
The Leafs have methodically built their team into a contender, but all of the Leafs best players are guys they drafted high, traded for, or signed. Pierre Engvall was a seventh round pick, but somehow that isn’t quite the same thing.
If you look at the NHL’s recent list of long-term contenders, there’s a pattern:
Pavel Datsyuk – 6th round
Kris Letang – 3rd round
Duncan Keith – 2nd round
Jon Quick – 3rd round
Igor Shesterkin – 4th round
Alex Edler – 3rd Round
Alex Burrows – undrafted
Bergeron – 2nd round
Marchand – 3rd round
Holtby – 4th round
Along with the previously listed Tampa players, the teams represented above are the teams who have been the NHL’s best over the last ten years. Every single one of them has a star player in the 2nd round or lower.
The Leafs are yet to pull that off.
The NHL draft is a crapshoot – after the top few players, no one really has any clue what they are doing. At best, teams are taking educated guesses. The Leafs, in the Dubas Era, have made a concerted effort to target players with high ceilings and lower chances of making the NHL as a non-star.
While there are people who sign the praises of the Leafs recent drafts, they aren’t going to get any kind of mainstream praise until they actually hit on a player or two – as of right now, not enough time has passed to judge what Dubas has done. I am optimistic, but really, who knows?
The only thing I do know is that it’s bound to happen for the Leafs eventually. Tomas Kaberle is a long time ago now, and if one of the Leafs lower picks was to become a star player, likely on a league-minimum contract, it would make a team that is already at the top of the league that much better.
Next. Will the Leafs Re-Sign Engvall?. dark
In fact, the Toronto Maple Leafs are the only team, besides Colorado, that has been a contender for 3+ years in the NHL salary cap era without turning a low pick into a superstar. That’s a credit to their management, but it makes you salivate at what will be possible if someone like Topi Niemela or Nick Robertson becomes a star.