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Toronto Maple Leafs Top 10 Prospects for the 2023-24 NHL Season

By James Tanner

TORONTO, CANADA - APRIL 27: Matthew Knies #23 of the Toronto Maple Leafs skates with the puck against the Tampa Bay Lightning during Game Five of the First Round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scotiabank Arena on April 27, 2023 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Lightning defeated the Maple Leafs 4-2.(Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)
TORONTO, CANADA - APRIL 27: Matthew Knies #23 of the Toronto Maple Leafs skates with the puck against the Tampa Bay Lightning during Game Five of the First Round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scotiabank Arena on April 27, 2023 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Lightning defeated the Maple Leafs 4-2.(Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images) /
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#10 Nick Moldenhauer

Age: 19

Height/Weight: 5’10 170 lbs

Position: Right Wing

Shoots: Right

Draft: 3rd Round 95th overall, 2022

The Toronto Maple Leafs drafted Nick Moldenhaur out of Chicago in the USHL where he was coming off a season in which he scored 18 goals and 43 points in 41 games.

He went back to the same team last year and scored 30 goals and 75 points in 55 games.

This year he is playing for Michigan in the Big 10.

Moldenhaur is most famous for a gruesome and, what I imagine was a life threatening, injury where a skate cut his carotid artery forcing him to get a blood transfusion.

Like almost all Leafs prospects, he was drafted because his positioning, situational awareness and on-ice intelligence – aka his “hockey sense” – far exceeds his talent.

The Leafs feel – probably correctly – that players with a strong metal facet to their game have a leg up on their similarly talented peers.

Why do you think guys like Minten, Robertson and Fraser have fast-tracked it to the NHL? Like Moldenhaur, their skills are bolstered by intelligence.

Moldenhaur is also a very determined, hard-working player and likely would have been drafted higher if he hadn’t had so many injuries in his draft year.

He appears to be taking a similar route to the NHL as Matthew Knies (three seasons in the USHL and then moving on to the Big 10) and the Toronto Maple Leafs can only hope he is half as good.

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