6. Fraser Minten
Age: 18
Height/Weight: 6’1 185 LBS
Position: Centre
Shoots: Left
Draft: 2nd round 38th overall 2022
The Leafs were comfortable trading down 13 slots in the draft in order to select Minten. This allowed them to get rid of Petr Mrazek for (basically) free, and to add another top prospect to the system.
I’ll give you two guesses what words come up when you google Fraser Minten.
If you guessed “Intelligence” and “hard worker” get yourself a doughnut.
Minten has so far impressed at his first training camp. John Tavares mentioned how smart he is. The coach talked maturity and hard work. The phrase “extremely competitive” came up.
It’s kind of funny how Kyle Dubas is pegged as this silly inexperienced moron who only wants high-flying 5’6 players who do trick shots, when in reality he’s built this stable of intelligent hard-workers with generally strong all-round skills.
I don’t think anyone, even the most optimistic Toronto Maple Leafs fan, understands how good this system is going to be at turning out very good NHL players. It would not surprise me at all if every single player on this list turned into an above average NHL player.
Minten is ranked higher than the other four somewhat similar players on this list so far because his shot is NHL quality and he is a very good defensive player. It will never happen, but I bet he could play in the NHL right now.
He’s got upside, but worst case scenario is that Minten is a 20 goal scorer with great underlying numbers playing on an NHL 3rd line.