Hockey Christmas has come and gone. The 2025 NHL Draft might have been an awkward decentralized setup that we all hope will never happen again, but it was still two nights where several teams solidified their future with drafting potential key players.
Were the Toronto Maple Leafs one of those teams? Were they able to make all the right selections to set themselves up nicely for when they next need an injection of talent in a few years? Only time will tell but there were some noticeable takeaways for new director of amateur scouting Mark Leach's first big weekend with the Leafs.
Size was a factor
It was clear that a player's size was a determining factor for Toronto. Well, it was for every team since this was randomly a very large group of draft-eligible players -- and it was actually the first time that no defensemen under 6-foot was selected. And it was something the Leafs wanted to address.
The average height of the six players that the Leafs drafted this weekend was 6-foot-3, with the shortest being 6-foot-1 center Tyler Hopkins and the largest being 6-foot-4 defenseman from the Flint Firebirds, Ryan Fellinger.
After the Draft, Leach reflected on the selections and their collective size, and attributes it to just being a factor. It's easier to be big in the NHL compared to small, of course -- and the Leafs echoed that.
"It happened to be there at times," Leach said. "We talked about guys who were maybe a little bit smaller, but when you are talking apples to apples, we felt size was a big factor involved because there wasn’t much difference in their skill set. That is one of the elements I like. Going back years, I have drafted smaller guys, but those small guys have to be so highly skilled, so highly intelligent, and probably have a knack for scoring. That is when I defer to size."
Sure, the Leafs could have swung massively to get smaller, skilled players. But typically when they were selecting, the players they liked just so happened to be tall, as well, it seems.
Some swings, but for support players
Every single draft class has some sort of risk. Even at the very top of the entire Draft, there is risk involved. Hell, the first-overall pick had just 17 games played this season and doesn't even turn 18 years old until a couple months from now. For the Leafs, there was built-in risk and swings made on prospects, but the ultimate upside of the players taken is limited.
Tinus Luc Koblar is an extremely raw prospect and at 64th overall, there was more projectable prospects available. Players like winger Nathan Behm from the WHL's Kamloops Blazers has some of that size but with an inherrant scoring touch that could earn him a middle-six role in the future, and he was taken two picks later by Chicago. Center Luca Romano from the Kitchener Rangers felt like a lay-up pick; he is a swift skater and is poised to have a breakout year like Luke Misa just had after going later than expected last year.
Selecting the tall Norwegian center instead of maybe some more local, projectable talents might end in the same result, but it feels like a much lengthier development path with less certainty of making any impact on the NHL roster.
Even later on, I personally love the Harry Nansi and Tyler Hopkins picks, but other than that it is hoping and praying for players to even make it and become professional hockey players. There was talent left on the board to opt for a player that might just be the designated Large draft pick. Allocating the risk to players having long hockey careers, instead of whether or not their tangible skill translate into the NHL, feels like a risky choice.
Heavy OHL presence
And just to note on the make-up of the class: Typically, we have seen a wide array of backgrounds and playing histories when it came to Leafs draft picks in recent years. Maybe the most limited class was when Toronto had just three picks in 2022 and selected Easton Cowan out of the OHL, and two others, Hudson Malinski out of the AJHL, and Noah Chadwick out of the WHL. They were at least looking in different provinces.
For the 2025 NHL Draft, maybe it is just the way their board went, but four of their six selections are from the OHL. For different teams with different successful seasons, but it was all in their own backyard. The two outliers were forward William Belle, taken from the U.S. National Team Development Program and committed to the University of Notre Dame, and the previously mentioned Luc Koblar.
It's just an interesting little tidbit of information that for the first draft in this new Leach Era, they stick to players all playing on the same highway system as the Leafs.