Toronto Maple Leafs 2017 NHL Draft Retrospective

Conclusion

This draft, much like the last couple have proven to be utter disasters for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

When it comes to Leafs Drafts, 2014 wasn't very good. 2015 Was a total disaster. 2016 was somehow worse.

Fortunately, the 2017 Draft has been relatively underwhelming in hindsight but there was still value to be had that would be very beneficial for the club today.

It is even more unacceptable that the draft strategy employed by the team was once again predictably bad from day one.

The Leafs, during the Hunter era, consistently opted to draft combinations of players who were underproducing, overage, oversized, and in many cases all of the above. (All Stats Via Eliteprospects.com).

The 2017 draft was no exception and saw the team draft Rasanen, Kara, Gordeev, McGregor, and O'Connell who all fit at least one of these categories.

Rightly or wrongly, the NHL is a results based business and the Hunter/Lou years have yielded very little in terms of results at the draft table. It is good that the apparent strategy was flawed even at the time so that way it is quite easy to evaluate and fix.

Luckily, the drafts under Dubas seem to have corrected these wrongs.