The Honorable Mentions
While the Toronto Maple Leafs don’t have the blue-chip star quality in their prospect system that the Anaheim Mighty Ducks or LA Kings currently have, they do have a ton of players with enough NHL upside that they don’t all fit in a top ten list.
Everyone of the Leafs top 10 prospects is either on the verge of becoming an NHL regular or has the upside to possibly become a star. Not a single one of them is a blue-chip guarantee, but those are rare when your team isn’t finishing last on an annual basis.
Kyle Dubas has overseen the last five drafts.
He has drafted in the first round just twice:
- 2018, 29th, Rasmus Sandin. Graduated to the NHL, no longer a prospect.
- 2020, 15th, Rodion Amriov, one of the team’s top prospects.
The Leafs have traded three picks, but they made up for it with smart second round selections. Nick Robertson was the youngest player in his draft, would have been picked in the first round of the 2020 draft if he’d been born a few days later, and is easily the equivalent of a mid first rounder.
They were able to trade their pick this season because the player they wanted – Fraser Minten – was likely going to be available in the second round, and it turned out he was.
The last pick was in 2020 where everyone was drafting off extremely limited information. In that draft they got Ty Voit, who is also probably the equivalent of a mid first round pick today. Don’t rate Voit that highly? The Leafs also have Knies, and he’s definitely a first round equivalent at this point.
When coming up with this list, we tried to rank the players based on a very un-scientific combination of what we think their upside is and what we think their odds of becoming an NHL player are.
For example, I think Semyon Der-Arguchintsev has a ton of talent, but now he’s 22 and it’s been five years since he was drafted. He still has a high ceiling, but the probability of him hitting it is getting lower. He likely won’t be an NHL regular, but if he does, it will likely be because he broke out and became an unexpected star.
Pontus Holmberg, on the other hand, is likely to play in the NHL this year. He’s the same age and comes from the same draft. He’s less talented overall, but more consistent. He could be a useful NHL player, but won’t be a star.
Neither player makes the top ten, but it should give you some insight into how we rank the players.
Here are the Toronto Maple Leafs Top Prospect Honorable Mentions:
Goalies: Joseph Woll, Erik Kallgren (he’s 25, but if we’re including Woll, who is 24…), Dennis Hildeby.
Defense: Mac Hollowell, Alex Rindell, William Villeneuve, Filip Kral (All four should be on the Marlies this year).
Forwards: Nick Abruzzese, Dmitri Ovchinnikov, Pavel Gogolev, Pontus Holberg, Semyon Der-Arguchintsev, Mikhail Abramov, Ryan Tverberg, and if you want to be generous, Denis Malgin and Joey Anderson.