Grading The Toronto Maple Leafs Prospect Pool

Forwards

Grade: B-

Notable players: Easton Cowan, Fraser Minten, Nikita Grebyonkin, Ryan Tverberg, Miroslav Holinka, Ty Voit

The Leafs prospect pool upfront lacks a lot of the high end talent that it had just under a decade ago. However, with the emergence of Easton Cowan winning the Most Outstanding Player of the Year award in the OHL and the playoffs MVP.

As well as Grebyonkin capturing the KHL’s Rookie of the Year award two seasons ago and taking some bigger steps this past season, they have a wide range of interesting talents. Both could even challenge for a spot in the NHL after Grebyonkin signed his ELC a few months ago and moved to North America.

Cowan and Grebyonkin have raised their ceilings in a massive way and at this point project to become top-six forwards.

At this stage, they appear to have the highest ceilings but there is a good number of others that project to become NHL contributors. The most notable are probably Fraser Minten and Ryan Tverberg.

Minten has all of the smarts to turn into a solid middle-six/third line forward where Tverberg could easily outplay his projection. His gritty game seems to make him a lock to at least be a future NHL call-up/depth piece while his puckhound playstyle and skill level suggests he could play up and down an NHL lineup as a passenger.

A player like Sam McCue fits a similar mould but he is early in his development so we won’t know for a few years.

The Leafs added recent draftees at the 2024 NHL Draft like the aforementioned Sam McCue, Miroslav Holinka, and Alexander Plesovskikh. It is very early in these players’ development curves so it is hard to tell exactly how they project but Holinka, who recently turned heads at development camp, appears to have the highest NHL potential. The other two seem likely to be more role players if they do in fact make the NHL someday.

Just past the three mentioned above, there is Nick Moldenhauer who was drafted in 2022 and Hudson Malinoski who was drafted in 2023. They are both 20 and both just completed their freshman years in the NCAA with similar rates of production. They seem like project picks and likely will spend at least a couple more seasons in College before turning pro.

Ty Voit who battled through injuries this year was a prolific producer in juniors and is one of those prospects who seems like a true wildcard.

He has high end vision and playmaking, producing 155 assists in 183 games with the Sarnia Sting. He also looked to be well above the competition of the ECHL racking up six assists and eight points in only five games this past season. The other attributes is what will define his NHL potential, especially as an undersized player at 5-10 and 161lbs.

There are a few more forwards that fit the “undersized” tag but their NHL projection seems a little more murky. Those would be 5-10 Harvard University forward Joe Miller and 5-9 soon-to-be Marlies forward Braeden Kressler.

Both have projectable NHL skating and playmaking abilities with Miller possessing more pizzazz and Kressler more of a two-way forward. They seem like the prototypical undersized forwards who’s size may be the limiting factor. Though, we have seen a number of small forwards go on to have good-to-great NHL careers, it is always hard to bet on them. Especially given the current regimes reliance on size.

Outside of these players mentioned, there are some others who are either older or who’s NHL potential seems a little murkier. Players like: Alex Steeves, Roni Hirvonen, Nick Abruzzese, and Jacob Quillan. The jury is still out on these players but with them all being 22 years old or older, their runways are starting to get smaller.

As I said before, the pool lacks legitimate star potential but with the emergence of Cowan and with some rounded off depth, the forward prospects look promising. There are a few who project to be at the very least middle-six forwards in the NHL someday with the most notable being Cowan, Minten, and Grebyonkin. But, players like Tverberg, Voit, and Holinka amongst others have some legitimate NHL upside too.