Mighty turnaround for Toronto Maple Leafs prospects pool

[HF Article]

Photo: Scott Harrington got into 15 games with the Leafs until he was sent down to the AHL Marlies on November 28th. (Courtesy of Graig Abel/Getty Images)


</p>Less than a year ago, the Toronto Maple Leafs were in an unenviable place—the prospect cupboard was bare, the AHL affiliate lacked star power, and the big club was in a downward spiral. This year’s version of the Maple Leafs doesn’t inspire much confidence, but the future looks bright thanks to a drastic overhaul and a newfound commitment to drafting and development.

In just one short year the organization has gone from having one of the weakest prospect pools in the NHL to having, at the very least, a top 10 group.… read more

The post Mighty turnaround for Toronto Maple Leafs prospects pool appeared first on Hockey's Future.



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[jjjshab]

not sure if you guys will see this but Cameranesi is in his senior year

 

[Pholus]

FYI Donaghey is not an overager for Halifax, he's born in 96.

 

[hotpaws]

wow shocking how actually keeping your first round picks and drafting skill over potential 4th liners with your other picks drastically improves a prospect pool

the funny thing is i was told repeatedly how Burke re stocked the cup boards even though our picks outside of the odd top 10 he kept were not developing

 

[The Missing Piece]

To be honest it's more like a top 3 pool not a top 10.

 

[WTFMAN99]

wow shocking how actually keeping your first round picks and drafting skill over potential 4th liners with your other picks drastically improves a prospect pool

the funny thing is i was told repeatedly how Burke re stocked the cup boards even though our picks outside of the odd top 10 he kept were not developing

Free Wallets = 1st round picks.....right?

 

[hotpaws]

Free Wallets = 1st round picks.....right?

according to Burke , Bozak/Hanson/Monster were => to the 2nd and 9th overall he traded

Thankfully we now have a mgmt team that values the draft and seems to know what to do with the picks .

 

[SprDaVE]

Dubas and Hunter did rather well in the short-term. Let's hope Lamoriello can do even more with them under him.

 

[hotpaws]

Dubas and Hunter did rather well in the short-term. Let's hope Lamoriello can do even more with them under him.

Hunter's doing the scouting , building the scouting department from the ground up and made the decisions on who to draft , all Dubas seems to be doing is some PR work .

 

[SprDaVE]

Hunter's doing the scouting , building the scouting department from the ground up and made the decisions on who to draft , all Dubas seems to be doing is some PR work .

Dubas added a lot of decent assets to the Marlies and added a lot of the development staff to the Leafs. Froese was a great find and Justin Holl appears to be another one. He was also attending a lot of Junior/NCAA games to prepare for the draft.

Let's not forget he's the one that ultimately pulled the trigger on the deals at the draft that brought in Dermott, Bracco and Dzierkals, and also signed Hyman. The Kessel deal was not as good as hoped but bringing in Kapanen was a good get from the look of things.

Hunter wasn't a lone wolf. I think Dubas deserves some credit.

 

[I Believe]

I know it's early, but man is our last years draft looking promising. The kind that could turn a franchise around

 

[hotpaws]

Dubas added a lot of decent assets to the Marlies and added a lot of the development staff to the Leafs. Froese was a great find and Justin Holl appears to be another one. He was also attending a lot of Junior/NCAA games to prepare for the draft.

Let's not forget he's the one that ultimately pulled the trigger on the deals at the draft that brought in Dermott, Bracco and Dzierkals, and also signed Hyman. The Kessel deal was not as good as hoped but bringing in Kapanen was a good get from the look of things.

Hunter wasn't a lone wolf. I think Dubas deserves some credit.

Where was it said that Dubas had the final say on any of those moves at the draft or the Kessel deal ? I'll give Dubas credit for recommending Keefe who looks like he's doing an excellent job so far .

from what has been reported , Shanny said it was Hunter who had the final say on which scouts to keep and on who to draft

Dubas seems to be the golden boy around here just like Burke was for a time but i'll wait until there's some actually positive results that we can give him credit for before proclaiming to be some genius .

 

[hotpaws]

I know it's early, but man is our last years draft looking promising. The kind that could turn a franchise around

it does look like an excellent draft , many of the prospects are having excellent seasons and it's a nice departure from the past when people were making excuses for our prospects stalled development

hopefully Hunter and his staff can duplicate this time of performance in the years too come

 

[Stand Witness]

Free Wallets = 1st round picks.....right?

Well with the advantage of hindsight and knowing what Bozak has done I would say his production level so far in his career is about in line with what you would expected from a later half 1st round pick.


But ya, for every '1st round pick' you find as a free wallet, 90% will be nothing important.

 

[Guy Boucher]

Where was it said that Dubas had the final say on any of those moves at the draft or the Kessel deal ? I'll give Dubas credit for recommending Keefe who looks like he's doing an excellent job so far .

from what has been reported , Shanny said it was Hunter who had the final say on which scouts to keep and on who to draft

Dubas seems to be the golden boy around here just like Burke was for a time but i'll wait until there's some actually positive results that we can give him credit for before proclaiming to be some genius .

Shanahan made reference to Hunter having final say on the picks and Dubas making all the trades on the draft floor. Teams were told prior to the draft to talk to Dubas about all trades.

 

[SprDaVE]

Where was it said that Dubas had the final say on any of those moves at the draft or the Kessel deal ? I'll give Dubas credit for recommending Keefe who looks like he's doing an excellent job so far .

from what has been reported , Shanny said it was Hunter who had the final say on which scouts to keep and on who to draft

Dubas seems to be the golden boy around here just like Burke was for a time but i'll wait until there's some actually positive results that we can give him credit for before proclaiming to be some genius .

Where was it said that he DIDN'T have the final word? it was reported that Shanahan told teams to talk to him about trades, whereas Hunter was doing prepping for the draft. If you think he didn't do the leg work on a lot of the things that happened, that's your prerogative.

Nobody said he's a golden boy or a genius at all, at least not me. It seems to me that you're quick to call Mark Hunter the golden boy and lone wolf here. All I'm doing is giving them both the credit for shifting the prospect pool in the right direction. What's wrong with that?

 

[colchar]

wow shocking how actually keeping your first round picks and drafting skill over potential 4th liners with your other picks drastically improves a prospect pool

First rounders aren't required to do that. Check out how many first round picks Detroit has traded away over the last 25 years.

 

[hotpaws]

Where was it said that he DIDN'T have the final word? it was reported that Shanahan told teams to talk to him about trades, whereas Hunter was doing prepping for the draft. If you think he didn't do the leg work on a lot of the things that happened, that's your prerogative.

Nobody said he's a golden boy or a genius at all, at least not me. It seems to me that you're quick to call Mark Hunter the golden boy and lone wolf here. All I'm doing is giving them both the credit for shifting the prospect pool in the right direction.

I heard Shanny say they could call him Dubas or Hunter and that Shanny had the final say after consulting with his mgmt team .

I'm giving Hunter the credit (or blame if these picks bust ) that he's due , Shanny said he had control over which scouts to keep and who to hire , the draft and he's the one that's reported to be living in the rinks with his scouts watching these kids so why should i give co credit/blame to Dubas ?

LL was brought in since Shanny obviously believed we had a void at GM and didn't feel comfortable in any of his people being able to competently fill that position at this time , so if i wanted to take a shot at Dubas (which i'm not regardless of how it seems) it could easily be said Shanny felt his performance didn't warrant him making the calls like some are giving him credit for .

 

[hotpaws]

First rounders aren't required to do that. Check out how many first round picks Detroit has traded away over the last 25 years.

check out how many times Det traded top 10 picks and how many times they traded a late first for a couple picks

 

[Gallagbi]

Less than a year ago, the [URL="http://www.hockeysfuture.com/teams/toronto_maple_leafs/"]Toronto Maple Leafs[/URL] were in an unenviable place—the prospect cupboard was bare, [b]the AHL affiliate lacked star power,[/b] and the big club was in a downward spiral. This year’s version of the Maple Leafs doesn’t inspire much confidence, but the future looks bright thanks to a drastic overhaul and a newfound commitment to drafting and development[/QUOTE]
Weird comment given Nylander was impressive and Brown led AHL rookies in scoring.

Prospect pool is definitely better now with more (high) picks, but they had some promising players on that Marlies team last year (who continue there this season).

 

[champs*]

First rounders aren't required to do that. Check out how many first round picks Detroit has traded away over the last 25 years.

Toronto - 14 first round picks since 2000

Detroit - 8 first round picks since 2000

 

[WTFMAN99]

Well with the advantage of hindsight and knowing what Bozak has done I would say his production level so far in his career is about in line with what you would expected from a later half 1st round pick.


But ya, for every '1st round pick' you find as a free wallet, 90% will be nothing important.

Overall the strategy of trading top 60 picks and supplementing them with NCAA free agents or European UFAs was a failed strategy. We assumed it was bad at the time, now with the benefit of hindsight, it's as clear as clear can be. Don't trade your draft picks.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Hunter's doing the scouting , building the scouting department from the ground up and made the decisions on who to draft , all Dubas seems to be doing is some PR work .

IIRC, Dubas is also in charge of the analytics stuff, and that pushes a lot of personnel decisions.


But I dunno how much that affects Hunter's decisions. Probably not a ton.

 

[Joey Hoser]

Where was it said that Dubas had the final say on any of those moves at the draft or the Kessel deal ? I'll give Dubas credit for recommending Keefe who looks like he's doing an excellent job so far .

from what has been reported , Shanny said it was Hunter who had the final say on which scouts to keep and on who to draft

Dubas seems to be the golden boy around here just like Burke was for a time but i'll wait until there's some actually positive results that we can give him credit for before proclaiming to be some genius .

Dubas is the Marlies GM and basically heads up the analytics side of player evaluation.

I'm pretty sure we've discussed it before and you don't buy into analytics at all, so unless the Marlies really impress you, its doubtful you'll ever be able to appreciate Dubas' impact, regardless of whether or not it's a positive one.

 

[gamer1035]

First rounders aren't required to do that. Check out how many first round picks Detroit has traded away over the last 25 years.

No one is ever getting datsyuk and zetterberg in the late rounds ever again. Scouting is far more improved from those days. Same with Lidström in the third.