Leafs' Prospect/Marlies Discussion Thread!

[hockeylover]

 

[hockeylover]

 

[Artnes]

Knies is very hard to contain down low. Stands out more with him being bigger and stronger than most of his peers but its encouraging to see him use his size to.his advantage

 

[LeafOfFaith]

Imagine if these three guys are all top 6 and top 4 quality right out of the gate and we have them for three years at $1M playing like that.

 

[MindzEye]

Interesting troll on Leaftwit got me thinking...do we have a better prospect group than the Senators?

Quick ground rule is that if they're full time with the NHL club, they're not a prospect. We know that we have a better NHL team than the Sens and our core is only a few years older than Chabot-Stutzle-Tkachuk-Batherson. I'm also going to limit the age here as well. Duszak putting up PPG+ numbers as a 24 year old defender is interesting, but he's almost as old as Auston ffs. Also, goalies are voodoo. If they're not close to the NHL with projectable results in a reasonable sample, fuck'em.

I'm just going to tier out the prospect groups for upside they're likeliest to reach. Elite (1st line anchor, top pairing anchor, true #1 goalie), Good (top 6, top 4, good tandem goalie), depth (bottom 6, bottom pair, bottom side of a tandem/backup). Anyone without likely NHL upside doesn't need to be mentioned.

Elite
Sens - Sanderson
Leafs - None

Sanderson is a maybe stud, legitimate top prospect is most systems. Topi might belong in this conversation. What he's doing in Finland is pretty crazy, but there's not enough sample for me to consider him among the elite prospects in the game.

Good
Sens - Greig, Sogard, Thomson
Leafs - Neimela, Robertson, Amirov, Knies

So I think all 3 Sens prospects listed belong here, but if we were to put them in order, I think the 3 Sens prospects are fighting for the bottom 4 spots in the group with Knies. Greig is the best of the 3 Sens prospects and he's way off Niemela & Robertson's quality. Amirov is probably a step up as well though it's hard to tell with how his russian club is treating him. We're going to hate Greig in a few years, even if he doesn't hit his offensive upside. Plays with dirty anger. Sogard is a huge and talented swedish goalie who has some "Up side of the Schwartz" in him. Thomson is defensively limited but looks like a top 4 puck mover in the future. Having Sanderson and Chabot around will blunt his value though, he's a good PP QB apparently.

Depth
Sens - Jarventie, Sokolov, Bernard-Docker, maybe Lodin
Leafs - Steeves, Voit, Tvergberg, Holmberg, Hirvonen, Abruzesse, Kokkonen, Rindell, Rubins

This is where we pull ahead of them imo. I think the combined top 2 tiers are pretty close overall and probably a wash. But this depth tier is a complete wipeout. Their system just falls off of the planet for anything with more than fringe 4th line upside and Dubas has focused on adding as many of these sneaky high upside lottery tickets to the organization as possible.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

Robertson feels like a non-entity lately.

 

[MindzEye]

Robertson feels like a non-entity lately.

Long term injuries will do that to a guy.

But having the best 18 yr old goal scoring season in OHL history and the 24th best 19 yr old PPG in AHL history (Spezza-Nylander are 1-2 fwiw...and Sandin is the 2nd best 19 yr old D ppg in AHL history, only behind Carlson) buys the kid a bit of latitude.

 

[MindzEye]

This kid is going to look so good on Auston's wing

 

[axlsalinger]

 

[zeke]

Knies is very hard to contain down low. Stands out more with him being bigger and stronger than most of his peers but its encouraging to see him use his size to.his advantage

Something a little bit...wonky...about him out there but still he sure seems to look like pretty much the full package.

 

[Wayward DP]

This kid is going to look so good on Auston's wing

> bunting > hyman

 

[zeke]

Robertson feels like a non-entity lately.

Remember he's only 4 months older than Hirvonen and 6 months older than Topi and he was great at this tournament two tournaments ago back when he was a year and a half plus younger than they are now.

 

[Preston]

Matthew Van Kniesdyk?

(with worse college numbers and maybe worse upside)

 

[LeafGm]

Robertson feels like a non-entity lately.

I’ve sort of taken the approach of completely writing him off as a prospect, on account of him being a midget who plays a reckless style while having bones and ligaments that are made out of papier-mâché.

If he contributes anything at the NHL level for any sustained period of time, it’ll be a pleasant surprise.

Fortunately we have multiple other prospects to look to now who seem worth getting excited about.

 

[hockeylover]

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised in the end, FWIW, but fair to manage your own expectations I guess.

 

[LeafGm]

I hope you’re right, but I won’t count on it.

Even aside from the fact that he’s injury prone, the fact that he’s played basically no hockey at all through two pretty crucial years of development seems like it’ll be hard to come back from.

 

[Preston]

I soured on him too because he was a terrible NHLer at 19/20 years old. Kind of incredibly irrational but when you cheer for a team with this kind of talent it's easy for me to not fall in love with prospects. Whereas in the past Joe Colborne's and Justin Pogge's were the teams great white only hope.

 

[Wayward DP]

don't forget former first round pick Peter Holland!

 

[zeke]

I soured on him too because he was a terrible NHLer at 19/20 years old.

18/19yrs old, you mean.

And a very young 18/19yrs old at that

He hasn't played in the NHL as a 20yr old yet.

 

[Preston]

Point still stands that I'm furious with him because he's not Matthews/Marner. He should be ashamed of himself.