Ranking Prospects 2022-2023
- Thread starter herman
- Start date
L K
Well-known member
Nik said:
It's going to be the downfall of this iteration of the franchise.
2015 - Hunter/Dubas draft - get Marner and Dermott.
2016-2017 - Lou - get Matthews, Grundstrom, Liljegren, Brooks
2018 - End of Lou/Dubas - Sandin/Durzi
2019-now - Dubas - Robertson/Abruzzese 2G1A in 25 GP
I like some of our European prospects. I really like Niemela. I really like Knies but I really don't think our prospect depth is all that great. The 2019 draft might change that once some of these guys come to North America/turn pro but so many of our prospects are multiple steps away from being NHL contributors and its why our roster is a cluster of stop gaps.
We don't have a prospect ready to replace Bunting next year when we can't afford him. We don't have a prospect to replace Kerfoot who we need to trade to make room for Sandin. Far too many holes continue to have to be filled by trading/not-resigning players and not getting returns back for guys we lose.
One first round pick in the last 4 drafts for a team that hasn't won a playoff series is a horrible look. Our big prospect addition to this years lineup will be Nick Robertson who has played 65 games in the last two years because he can't stay healthy. When his size is his biggest detraction that is concerning. I don't really have the faith that his game transitions well to the NHL.
I 100% agree with this. They let too many pending UFAs walk, and did a terrible job at restocking the cupboard with cheap, cost controlled talent to fill in and I understand they want to go all in every year, which makes this difficult, but they really telegraphed their punch by being way too optimistic about the team in 16-17 and have let a lot of their decisions be anchored from there. They've also not made a ballsy move a la Brendan Hagel besides the Naz deal which was a question mark at the time considering we gave up the best player in the deal.L K said:
Kin
Active member
L K said:
In large part, I think this is at least part of my semi-tongue in cheek "Just start drafting relatively decent sized CHL scorers" policy. Not because I necessarily think they're better prospects but I do generally think they have a shorter path to contributing at the NHL level and you get a quicker sense of what they are.
I mean, I do think it's at least semi-noteworthy that in the drafts you're talking about(and you include 2014) the Leafs used a grand total of 0 Non-Top 10 firsts, seconds or thirds on those kinds of players. And the last 5 times they did use a 2nd or 3rd on a 5'11 or greater CHL forward with decent scoring numbers the only guy that didn't manage to at least show up and contribute a bit in the NHL was Brad Ross(who, I think it's safe to say given who was in charge, was drafted at least in part for 'toughness').
In fact, since 2000 the Leafs, I'd say, have used a pick like that about 10 times. Excluding Minten, six of them have at least turned into NHL players(Verhaege, Gauthier, Leivo, McKegg, Stajan, Boyes) vs. three guys who never made it (Ross, Corbeil, Vernarsky). Considering just the overall odds of where they were picking guys...that's pretty good. It's certainly a lot better than their record when using those picks anywhere else.
I mean, obviously the lack of Amirov hurts here(and get well soon Rodion!) but even if he was just sidelined with a more conventional injury, would we have any real idea how he was progressing as a prospect getting 4th line minutes in the KHL? Or realistically know how close he was to contributing to the Leafs?
I'm not so much advocating for narrowing the field of prospects they look at but I do feel like the Leafs draft strategy, with the Lamoriello years and continued with Dubas, has been like a team that really wasn't acting like they knew the situation they were in. If you're going grocery shopping with a limited budget, sometimes you've got to go with the staples, not shop around hoping someone's put the Foie Gras and Caviar on clearance. To me, that's the "Let's take a Russian we won't really know about for 4 years" or "Maybe this 5'7 guy is the next Johnny Gaudreau" picks are.
Frank E
Active member
Nik said:
A lot of people took a lot of heat over the past 4 years for being critical of some of the Dubas picks when an obvious CHL kid was available.
To me it's like how he's been handling goalies...he's tried to get cute and tricky rolling dice and all that, and it turns out that the #1 and #2 problems this team has had is young ELC players ready to take a step onto 3rd and 4th line roles, and the goaltending.
herman
Well-known member
TLN:
17. Filip Kral
17. Filip Kral
Kin
Active member
Frank E said:
I'm not entirely sure I'd equate the two only because I'm not entirely sure what the alternative to rolling dice is with the goaltending market. Like, I guess this season it would have been to just sign Campbell to whatever he wanted but I don't know if that feels a ton more secure than what they did. If the "safe" choice is to sign a guy coming off a bad year to a big money deal then you might just have to accept that there is no safe choice.
Likewise here I'm only really advocating for the "safer" choice because of the situation that Dubas/Lamoriello put themselves in with regards to picks. Like, if the Leafs were overflowing with draft picks and a well-stocked prospect base I'd be all for trying to moneyball it with 20 year olds playing in the Latvian 3rd division from time to time. But Dubas is the guy making the decision to trade picks to dump bad contracts or pay big prices for deadline acquisitions and then still try to game the system.
Frank E said:
Not to get too "DEFEND DUBAS'y here because I do get that it can be a bit much at time, but isn't his only real miss here not taking a CHLer like Mercer instead of Amirov (and obviously there's other circumstances with that). I mean 2018 was his first draft and at the time of the pick a lot of people, including myself, really really wanted the Leafs to pick Joe Veleno out of the QMJHL and instead he picked some Swedish defencemen (admittedly out of the OHL/Soo) and that's turned out pretty good so far. So he's 1-1 when it comes to whether or not passing on "obvious CHL kid" was a good move. And like I said there's a bit of an asterisk on the "loss" for that one.
The bigger problem seems to be not having enough picks. Some of that is because he needed to fix mistakes from the past (Marleau), others were mistakes that he himself made (going all in on 2021).
Kin
Active member
CarltonTheBear said:
I think a lot of this is a fair point to make and, to be sure, my only real Dubas-specific criticism here is that the list of prospects doesn't look great because of a draft strategy I don't love which is something that could easily flip based on some of these smaller, perhaps less safe picks turning out to be solid players.
But along those lines I do think there's been a bit of a shift from the Defend Dubas crowd about the 2015-2017 drafts now that we're seeing the paucity of what they produced where when those drafts were happening we got a lot of "Wow, look at all these really smart analytic based picks. No more Burke-esque caring about size and toughness. Looks like the Leafs are finally gaming the system" and now we're getting "You know, Lamoriello and Hunter locked Dubas up in a cabin during the drafts and threatened to break his calculator if he spoke to a prospect".
Like, the draft strategy I mentioned up there that I don't love...there is a bit of continuity in it from the start of Dubas' time with the team pre-Lamoriello.
Nik said:
Not gonna lie, I really don't remember this sentiment about the 16 and 17 drafts. The 2015 draft, which was pre-Lou and where most media folks have reported that Hunter and Dubas worked together, did have that vibe especially with picks like Bracco and Timashov being praised. And in retrospect that draft was a bit of an epic failure with none of those "smart" picks hitting and Dermott being remembered as the guy the Leafs took instead of not just Konecny but also Aho after they traded down.
But the 16 and 17 drafts, which were during Lou's time and again just based off reporting had Hunter fully in charge, did have a lot of players being taken specifically for size and toughness. Greenway, Middleton, Rasanen, and Gordeev were all guys the "analytics" probably wouldn't have been super high on and unfortunately all became a part of Mark Hunter's large adult sons club.
The only continuity I see is that Dubas also likes going after overagers. But I do think there's a pretty stark difference in the guys Lou was targeting in his drafts and with Dubas'. Especially when it comes to defencemen.
Kin
Active member
CarltonTheBear said:
For sure I'm exaggerating a bit for humorous effect here but I think the truth does lie somewhere in the middle. Like in 2016 in particular I think picks like Korshkov, Grundstrom and Brooks were talked about quite a bit in the way I remember. You're right that it's less true re: 2017 but to be fair that is also a draft where Lamoriello took a smooth skating, not very big Swedish defenseman with the #1 pick so it's not like there was a complete uniformity to how he was facing the draft either.
I'm not suggesting that Dubas was masterminding these drafts from behind the scenes just that I think a lot of the discussion of that era has gone from "Dubas is an important part of the front office that does listen a lot to its analytics department and thrives on collaboration" to a sort of disavowing of the whole three years.
Frank E
Active member
GP G A Pts PIM
2018 Entry 29 1 Rasmus Sandin D Soo Greyhounds [OHL] 88 6 22 28 14
2018 Entry 52 2 Sean Durzi D Owen Sound Attack [OHL] 64 3 24 27 55
2018 Entry 76 3 Semyon Der-Arguchintsev C Peterborough Petes [OHL]
2018 Entry 83 3 Riley Stotts C Calgary Hitmen [WHL]
2018 Entry 118 4 Mac Hollowell D Soo Greyhounds [OHL]
2018 Entry 149 5 Filip Kral D Spokane Chiefs [WHL]
2018 Entry 156 6 Pontus Holmberg C Vasteras (Sweden-3)
2018 Entry 209 7 Zachary Bouthillier G Chicoutimi Sagueneens [QMJHL]
2018 Entry 211 7 Semyon Kizimov R Togliatti-2 (Russia Jrs.)
Are we excited about anything here after the 52nd pick? They're 22 now.
herman
Well-known member
I don't see a path to the NHL for Kral, or Hollowell. Kral might squeeze in for like 1 season as a 7th just by virtue of size and system familiarity in like 2 years if his skating cleans up; he is very raw so we'll see how he shows up with top Marlies minutes. Might get bypassed by Kokkonen who is just more defensively reliable for a bottom pair.
Hollowell is TJ Brennan basically: super skilled but doesn't quite have that next level defensive skating that Jared Spurgeon has. Again, he's probably going to be one of the top Marlies so we'll see how he handles those minutes. Villeneuve will be pushing to displace him.
Hollowell is TJ Brennan basically: super skilled but doesn't quite have that next level defensive skating that Jared Spurgeon has. Again, he's probably going to be one of the top Marlies so we'll see how he handles those minutes. Villeneuve will be pushing to displace him.