On the fall: Nick Abruzzese
Back in 2022, Nick Abruzzese made his debut with the Maple Leafs upon conclusion of the NCAA hockey season. He made a good first impression, averaging about 10 minutes per game and ultimately scored his first ever NHL goal in his final game of the regular season against the Boston Bruins. More notably was the fact with Abruzzese in the Leafs lineup, Toronto went a stellar 8-1 down the stretch.
Abruzzese would go on to spend his next two professional seasons predominantly with the Marlies, putting up back-to-back 16-goal, 48+-point campaigns. Despite his impressive work, he has only managed to get into two games with the Leafs during that time frame.
This season, Abruzzese has unfortunately gotten off to a slower start, and is currently behind his pace in terms of the production that he put up the previous two years. In doing so, he was passed up in terms of getting a call-up during the Leafs injury woes when his Marlies teammates left and right were given promotions instead. As a result, Abruzzese will need to step up and show more to the Leafs brass if he hopes to play a more significant role in the team’s future.
On the rise: Artur Akhtyamov
In recent times, a lot of the fanfare had focused on Dennis Hildeby as the next best Leafs goalie prospect after Joseph Woll. After all, Hildeby was coming off a stellar 2023-24 campaign with the Marlies in which he posted a 21-11-7 record with a 2.41 GAA and .913 save percentage. On top of that, he has also gotten the emergency call-up this season whenever the Leafs encountered some injury woes with their starting goalie tandem and has performed respectably in the process.
But masked in all of the happenings has been the exceptional play of Artur Akhtyamov. Coming over to North America for his first professional season with the Marlies, the former fourth round pick from the 2020 NHL Entry Draft has been practically unbeatable since making his debut. In 10 games of action to date, Akhtyamov holds an eye-popping 8-0-1 record with a 2.29 GAA and .913 save percentage.
In doing so, it has helped the Marlies to the second-best winning percentage in the AHL at .705. So for an organization that at one point in time has major concerns with their goaltending depth, that worry should no longer be existent with the current strong goalie prospect core that the Maple Leafs have.