It's been long enough. The Toronto Maple Leafs are going to play hockey Saturday afternoon -- well sort of. The Leafs' prospects will all line up to take on the Montreal Canadiens' prospects at the Bell Centre in the first game of the Prospect Showdown. And we have the projected lineup.
Thanks to TSN's Mark Masters, we have a quick idea of what we could potentially see on the ice in terms of player combinations whent the puck is dropped at 1:00 p.m. Saturday.
Projected Leafs lines for Prospect Showdown
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) September 12, 2025
Valis - Quillan - Cowan
Barbolini - Haymes - Kressler
McCue - Holinka - Pharand
Kirwin - Hopkins - Sim
Hlacar - Tverberg - Nansi
Chadwick - Danford
Prokop - Sharpe
Mayes - Parsons
Smith - Fellinger
Conrad
Akhtyamov
Peksa pic.twitter.com/COtuVAP7rs
Obviously, the most exciting piece of this entire lineup is to see who gets the assignment next to top prospect Easton Cowan. The main star of this entire little showcase that they have going on is the former London Knight and he gets top billing next to experienced centre Jacob Quillan and fellow junior graduate Borya Valis.
It should make for an interesting trio. Quillan is confident that he can be a full-time NHLer and push the regular Leafs to feel a little bit of pressure on the depth chart, and Valis as a undrafted free agent signing surely wants to prove that the decision was a right one before he heads into his first pro hockey season in North America with the Toronto Marlies.
With that potential mindset next to him, Cowan should get a whole lot of potential chances as he stares down some poor young Habs prospect trying to defend him and come nowhere close to him on a hockey IQ level.
Further down the lineup we find other interesting prospects like undrafted college free agent Luke Haymes manning the second-line pivot role, 2025 third-round pick Tyler Hopkins on the projected fourth line (maybe), and lots of physicality scattered throughout with the likes of Landon Sim and Harry Nansi.
The blue line is led by clearly the top two defensemen in Noah Chadwick and Ben Danford, Those two are the most high-end prospects of the bunch and then it somewhat falls off from there with no marquee names remaining.
We'll see how it all comes together when the puck drops in the afternoon at the Bell Centre.