Roundtable: Maple Leafs Future Looking Bright

[AndrewGForbesTHW]

A roundtable including three writers and a Leafs historian discuss the future of the Leafs and the development of prospects in part one of this roundtable discussion.

http://thehockeywriters.com/roundtable-the-future-is-bright-for-the-maple-leafs/

Which transaction do you think has the biggest impact on the Leafs for the present and the future?

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[colchar]

A memorabilia collector is a historian?

 

[dubplatepressure]

You know, all this talk about how bright our future is. Personally, I think we have a couple legit prospects, but look around the league and you notice against some other teams I sometimes think we really just don't have a godawful prospect pool anymore. Certainly not amazing though.

 

[TimeZone]

You know, all this talk about how bright our future is. Personally, I think we have a couple legit prospects, but look around the league and you notice against some other teams I sometimes think we really just don't have a godawful prospect pool anymore. Certainly not amazing though.

We certainly have one of the better prospect pools in the league. Now add a high first round pick this year and another late first and were looking even better.

 

[Joey Hoser]

You know, all this talk about how bright our future is. Personally, I think we have a couple legit prospects, but look around the league and you notice against some other teams I sometimes think we really just don't have a godawful prospect pool anymore. Certainly not amazing though.

Except for Buffalo, I don't think there are any teams that can boast a 1-2 punch of prospects like Marner and Nylander. It doesn't exactly fall off a cliff after that either, with guys like Kapanen and Brown.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Except for Buffalo, I don't think there are any teams that can boast a 1-2 punch of prospects like Marner and Nylander. It doesn't exactly fall off a cliff after that either, with guys like Kapanen and Brown.

Yeah that's great but most teams have many good players at the NHL level already.

Marner and Nylander look good but there's a lot more to rating the organization as a whole then that. And as good as they look now, there is zero guarantee they will turn into star players.

 

[Joey Hoser]

Yeah that's great but most teams have many good players at the NHL level already.

Marner and Nylander look good but there's a lot more to rating the organization as a whole then that. And as good as they look now, there is zero guarantee they will turn into star players.

Fair enough, but I was just responding to the comment and prospect pool itself, which is about as good as you could possibly expect it to be.

 

[Nithoniniel]

Yeah that's great but most teams have many good players at the NHL level already.

Marner and Nylander look good but there's a lot more to rating the organization as a whole then that. And as good as they look now, there is zero guarantee they will turn into star players.

Yeah, you are right. I'll say that our future looks bright when we field an increasingly young team while maintaining a top 5 prospect pool. Right now we've got the pool, but we have a team of veterans on short-term deals.

 

[WTFMAN99]

12 draft picks this summer and I can easily see us adding to it. We have 2 great prospects in Marner and Nylander, likely going to add to that.

We have some other good ones in Brown (any other year he should have won AHL rookie of the year), Kapanen, Leivo, Johnson, Dermott, Percy and others.

Our prospect pool is getting better. Right now we're probably a 3/4-7th ranked prospect pool and it should get better again this summer.

Hopefully we can augment it further by trading off veterans for picks/prospects.

 

[Leafs87]

Meh. Our prospect pool is nice but not nice enough for how bad our team is. Also really limited to forwards but just my opinion

 

[Joey Hoser]

Yeah, you are right. I'll say that our future looks bright when we field an increasingly young team while maintaining a top 5 prospect pool. Right now we've got the pool, but we have a team of veterans on short-term deals.

Im not sure i feel thats realpy necessary. I generally think you want 5 real high end pieces from the "draft high" portion of your rebuild. 3 forwards and 2 defencemen. I think we have 3/5 already in Rielly, Marner and Nylander. So we aren't that far away as far as timing goes, especially when you consider we still have youngish pieces like JVR, Kadri, Gardiner, and some prospects like Kapanen, Brown, the Goat and others who between them should be able to fill in the lesser spots.

Some will fail but there will also be some surprises.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Yeah, you are right. I'll say that our future looks bright when we field an increasingly young team while maintaining a top 5 prospect pool. Right now we've got the pool, but we have a team of veterans on short-term deals.

Exactly! I'd say the main reason our future looks bright is our management team, our awesome coach etc. That's the foundation for success but it's going to take time before the team gets to where we'd like to be on the ice (perennial playoff team/contender). Marner and Nylander is a good start but every team has some good prospects/players.

It's going take time.

 

[Purity*]

Except for Buffalo, I don't think there are any teams that can boast a 1-2 punch of prospects like Marner and Nylander. It doesn't exactly fall off a cliff after that either, with guys like Kapanen and Brown.

If we can get a top-3 pick next year I think it's going to start looking REAL good.

 

[Nithoniniel]

Im not sure i feel thats realpy necessary. I generally think you want 5 real high end pieces from the "draft high" portion of your rebuild. 3 forwards and 2 defencemen. I think we have 3/5 already in Rielly, Marner and Nylander. So we aren't that far away as far as timing goes, especially when you consider we still have youngish pieces like JVR, Kadri, Gardiner, and some prospects like Kapanen, Brown, the Goat and others who between them should be able to fill in the lesser spots.

Some will fail but there will also be some surprises.

I'd think the safer way to view it is that we have 0/5 right now, 1/5 close (Rielly) and 3/5 projecting to be (Rielly, Marner and Nylander). Historically speaking, few teams hit on everything right away and we shouldn't count on big surprises.

And then there is depth. A part of building that long-term successful franchise is getting a continuous influx of quality depth around those core pieces, that we can move for more picks when economically prudent to replenish that prospect pool, which in turn will hopefully replace the ones we sell off.

 

[AndrewGForbesTHW]

A memorabilia collector is a historian?

You've obviously never been to one of his 'Inside the Room' Nights - he's much more involved in the history of the Leafs than just collecting historical artefacts. And he does have historical artefacts - things you can't simply deem as memorabilia. Things that no other person can or will ever get their hands on aside from the Hall of Fame - do your research before simply commenting.

 

[AndrewGForbesTHW]

We certainly have one of the better prospect pools in the league. Now add a high first round pick this year and another late first and were looking even better.

Couldn't agree with this commenter more. We're among the top 10 in organization prospects league-wide. Pretty big step to take within a year.

 

[Gary Nylund]

If we can get a top-3 pick next year I think it's going to start looking REAL good.

That would help a LOT and is my biggest hope for this season. I'm sure that's a loser mentality to some but better to suffer some pain now then suffer a lot more pain later IMO. I just hope Nylander doesn't blow everybody away at camp and "force" his way onto the team as that doesn't fit with my long-term wishes. Maybe I'm just being paranoid about Nylander but there it is.

And ... just because I'm paranoid, that doesn't mean everyone's not out to get me.

 

[AndrewGForbesTHW]

Yeah, you are right. I'll say that our future looks bright when we field an increasingly young team while maintaining a top 5 prospect pool. Right now we've got the pool, but we have a team of veterans on short-term deals.

That's the perfect way to START the rebuild though. The future is what exists in the prospect pool at this point. Moving forward, then we can look at the roster and the pool combined.

 

[Joey Hoser]

I'd think the safer way to view it is that we have 0/5 right now, 1/5 close (Rielly) and 3/5 projecting to be. Historically speaking, few teams hit on everything right away and we shouldn't count on big surprises.

.

A team with 5/5 proven(moreso than Rielly) core pieces and depth to boot is a current contender, not a team with a bright future.

I'm not sure what you mean by "safer" and "counting on surprises". I'm not in charge of the Maple Leafs, nor advocating anything based on my assessment.

 

[Brock Radunske]

JVR - Marner - X
X - Nylander - Kapanen/Brown
X GOAT - Kapanen/Brown
X - X - X

Rielly - X
Gardiner - X
Percy - Harrington

X/Bernier
X

It's not a bad start. Hopefully a lot of those Xs can be addressed by current prospects breaking into the league or by this coming draft. The 3rd/4th line can be filled via UFA.

 

[Gary Nylund]

.

A team with 5/5 proven(moreso than Rielly) core pieces and depth to boot is a current contender, not a team with a bright future.

5/5? We're a very long way from that at the moment. 3 high end prospects, even if they all pan out (unlikely) that's still only 3. We may go 10 years without having 5 "core pieces" on the roster.

 

[AndrewGForbesTHW]

I'd think the safer way to view it is that we have 0/5 right now, 1/5 close (Rielly) and 3/5 projecting to be (Rielly, Marner and Nylander). Historically speaking, few teams hit on everything right away and we shouldn't count on big surprises.

And then there is depth. A part of building that long-term successful franchise is getting a continuous influx of quality depth around those core pieces, that we can move for more picks when economically prudent to replenish that prospect pool, which in turn will hopefully replace the ones we sell off.

Interesting theory and I like the grading scale. I agree here that there is certainly a need for depth on successful franchises. Look no further than the Blackhawks.

 

[AndrewGForbesTHW]

That would help a LOT and is my biggest hope for this season. I'm sure that's a loser mentality to some but better to suffer some pain now then suffer a lot more pain later IMO. I just hope Nylander doesn't blow everybody away at camp and "force" his way onto the team as that doesn't fit with my long-term wishes. Maybe I'm just being paranoid about Nylander but there it is.

And ... just because I'm paranoid, that doesn't mean everyone's not out to get me.

Not paranoid at all. Take the Detroit development mentality for a second and see that none of their guys will ever beat the record for most GP in the NHL because they simply hold these players back that extra year to give them that developmental structure.

 

[Joey Hoser]

5/5? We're a very long way from that at the moment. 3 high end prospects, even if they all pan out (unlikely) that's still only 3. We may go 10 years without having 5 "core pieces" on the roster.

I wasn't saying we had 5/5. I was pointing out that if we had 5/5 already proven and the depth that the person I was responding to was talking about, we'd already be a contender.

Clearly I wasn't saying we are already a contender.

I'm saying we're about halfway, or a little more, through the "draft high" portion of the rebuild. But that's also dependant on the 24-25 year old group of JVR, Gardiner and Kadri being part of it.

 

[Faltorvo]

Except for Buffalo, I don't think there are any teams that can boast a 1-2 punch of prospects like Marner and Nylander. It doesn't exactly fall off a cliff after that either, with guys like Kapanen and Brown.

EDM

McDavid
Reinhart
Draisaitl
Nurse

we don't touch that