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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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EDMONTON, AB – DECEMBER 30: Topi Niemela #7, Roni Hirvonen #22, Anton Lundell #15 (Photo by Codie McLachlan/Getty Images) /

#9 Roni Hirvonen

Age:  21

Height/Weight: 5’9 176 lbs.

Position: Centre

Shoots: Left

Draft: 2nd round, 59th overall, 2020

Hirvonen is a sneaky-good prospect. He won’t wow you with talent, but his kind of positional awareness and overall intelligence probably works a bit better in the pro-game where NHL coaches demand that.

In lesser leagues than the NHL, future NHL player have a much bigger talent separation over their non-future NHL playing peers than is seen in the NHL, and so there is always a tendency for them to use that separation to succeed without playing the kind of disciplined, positional game you see at the pro level.

That doesn’t work in the NHL, because even the best pro players only have a slight edge over anyone else. So players already used to playing a determined, smart, positionally sound, defensively strong game tend to transition better.

Hirvonen, strikes me as a player who might actually be better in the NHL than he is in the minors.

He has played the last several years in SM-liiga  in Finland.  This year he will debut for the Toronto Marlies and figures to be one of their better players.

It is not impossible that he makes his NHL debut this season as a call-up.

He has been solid in the World Juniors, even captaining team Finland.  He projects as, at best, a 3C in the NHL, but then again, he’s mostly played as an under-ager in a men’s pro league and has never been slotted in in a position to score a lot of points.

Where he to add more offense to his game in the AHL, his NHL prospects would be a lot better, but at the minimum he should be a much better version of what Pontus Holmberg currently is.

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