Leafs dig their Euro players apparently.

Annoyingly good pick.....

another 5'9 leaf forward....good luck on that.

**** and topi

ikr, when was the last time a 5'9" player had any impact at the NHL level, total bust of a draft pick

(DeBrincat, Marchand, Arviddson, Gaudreu, Tyler Johnson, Zuccarelo, Marchessault, Patty Kane)

well, with the current pandemic situation, the Euro guys are guaranteed to get playing time. Any NA picks, who knows when they'll next hit the ice

Dubas is that you. Did you get harder to play against?

no not yet, I'm thinking about trading up in the draft to get Tyler Biggs though, really good old American boy, not like that Euro punk Rakell and some goalie we don't need, John Gibson. Always draft for need, never the best player available, that's my galaxy brain philosophy

I dont get that "draft for need" narrative you ppl are using here...top 5 OA can be considered draft for need, rest will see NHL in 3 years time tops ( if at all ) After 5OA you draft what you will need in three years and that will be youngsters that will fill for Muzzin, Rielly and the rest 3 spots in defence.....so always top possible defender in 1st round cause so called "highskillers" are rolling around in all those 2nd and 3rd rounds also.....

Leafs took defencemen in the last 2 first rounds they picked in, both are shaping up pretty nicely. They might've just struck gold with Artemi Panarin lite, yet people are complaining we didn't take a defenceman who won't make the roster for years

Dubas has plucked other guys out of late rounds before, so we'll have to wait and see, but definitely drafting BPA is the right move, cause either they are awesome for you, or they have good trade value

There is something most of you cant process here on this site.......TML are set in front.......for next 5 years and if we are assuming Desert Queen, Nylander and Marner ( pretty much sure about kid ) will resign, you have top 2 lines set for 8+ years. Im here in this boat together with Sundin from 1994 and mindset of McCabe - Kaberle are enough to win a parade is biting TML in their ass thru all those years.

First need for Offence is new C, who will replace Tavares in 2025 and you have 5 years to draft one of those in 2nd round, while D is still in ruins.

1) You have LWer playing on 1st Line and to the people that are evaluating Ds by points...pls stop, hes not top 10 or 20 D in the League with his mediocre gameplay in own end, cause for points you have Forwards, tho i agree every team needs each own Rielly to run him on PP.

2) thank you for Muzzin, wish he would be 4 years younger and TML would have one Muzzin for each of three Pairs, cause as you see you can even fetch Holl next to those and Pair looks great ( only with Muzzin working his ass off for both he feels like 40y after 50 Games played )

3) over-the-night wonder called Holl, who is now considered Top 4 D cause beggars cant be choosers ( and hes just leetching on Muzzin who does 65%+ job on that tandem ) and hes actually No6 at most

4) Dermott who i like, but playing him on RHD takes away some of his mobility and gameplay per se and with emergence of Sandin he will be to expensive with 3 x 2M ( ask Holl ) 3rd Liner for the years to come, being No5 with the upside to jump into No4 lower part of pool, but then again, momental depth on LHD will screw the kid

5) Sandin, who is another Rielly, drafter 2018, probably fully ready 2021/2022, so three years

6) Lehtonen, who is another Rielly

7) Liljegren, who hopefully will be only one to take Muzzins place but then again lacking his height and strenght to be proper hitter in combo with defensive D, so he will need to be paired with correct supplement....drafted in 2017, hopefully fully ready 2021/2022

TL;DR : regardless of anything if your Pick isnt top 10, draft best D left on board in 1st round and fill the depth and wingers for Top 2 lines from 2nd Round on, no matter the year of Draft or what you have drafted for 10 years before that.....or hunt down scouts that found Pesce and Parayko and oil them with money to work for your franchise.....

Also, dont sell me how much of a high trade assets those kids are, ask Malgin who perfectly fits description of Dubarellis prototype....under 6' skillers that are easily stripped from puck by brutes like T.Myers and similar with half of their strenght,.....

Those are 3 players, the top 6 consists of 6 players. You listed 2 wingers and 1 centre. If you include Robertson, that's 3 wingers and 1 centre. Maybe getting some future stars to play in the top 6 when they get older or when Tavares drops off is a good idea? Seeing as these picks are gonna play in a few years, not right now



Or... we could take a centre in the first round? There's cases where the Dmen aren't nearly as good as the forwards. Tyler Myers vs Matt Barzal, for example. We need defence, but um, I'm taking the forward all day long, because 1. they help the team more, and 2. provide way more value if we were to trade them for defence.




Well, yeah ofc we'd like a Muzzin on each pair, Dubas himself has said this. Problem is, it's pretty hard to trade for those guys and even harder to draft one.



I mean, if he plays well with Muzzin in the top 4, does that not make him a top 4 guy? He was pretty good for us, and especially for cheap, he's big etc. If the argument is "well he only plays well with Muzzin"... thank goodness we can just play him with Muzzin then?



Definitely don't think Dermott is getting anywhere near 3x2M, maybe a 1 year deal at best. He may still figure out the top 4, remember, many defencemen don't figure it out until their mid 20s, Dermott is 23. He's a great young third pair option for us. Also... Holl is a good deal at 2M not sure why you think otherwise



K woah, slow down, no idea whether this is true yet. Sandin has huge upside but we'll have to see - if Lehtonen is any good, odds are we can't keep him after this year anyways, he's a rental



He's more offensively minded than Muzzin, not really the same player, but he should be ready either by then or even this year



I mean, don't take defencemen in the first round exclusively - if there's a great forward to be had. In 2 years a situation may develop where we don't need a good forward prospect and another team doesn't need a good defensive prospect - we swap. There's no reason ever to draft for need,



Um, Malgin is a 4th round pick that he nearly 200 games of NHL experience, plays centre, that we swapped for Marchment who is a total plug that will likely never make the NHL, just a big slow grinder. Isn't that a textbook case of size not being everything? For league min, pretty good player I'd say.

Also, really? the average height in the NHL is 5'10". Panarin (Amirov's comparable) is a 5'11", 40 goal scoring, 2 way winger who just inked an $11M deal, he's a star and frontrunner for the Hart trophy. Tampa's top 5 scorers in the playoffs were 5'7"-5'11". It's a different league than it was 20 years ago, size isn't everything. It's important in the lineup, but drafting size is what got us the god awful burke years.

I somehow suspected you wont get it, but nevermind...have fun rooting for new Panarin......

I didn't say they were the best team in the league, but... alright

I'll take the new Panarin all day over some random guy who tops out as a bottom pair defender who can't keep up to the speed of the NHL

As a matter of reference:
|Tampa's Rebuild to a cup - 2008-2020| ........................................ |Toronto's Rebuild to a cup, 2016-2028 (presumably)|
YR1: Draft 1OA (Miss the playoffs) ---------------------------------------------- Draft 1OA, Lose in 6 to president’s trophy winners in first round
YR2: Draft 2OA in 2009 (Miss the playoffs) ----------------------------------- Lose in 7 to conference finalists
YR3: Miss the playoffs --------------------------------------------------------------- (Dubas takes over as GM) Lose in 7 to Cup finalists
YR4: Lost RD3 in 7 -------------------------------------------------------------------- (Matthews signed 5 years) Lose in 5 to a team that were equal in standings
YR5: (Captain signed 5 years) Miss the playoffs --------------------------- TBD
YR6: Miss the playoffs -------------------------------------------------------------- TBD
YR7: Swept RD1 by Conference Finalists ------------------------------------- TBD
YR8: Cup Final (lost in 6) ----------------------------------------------------------- TBD
YR9: Third round (lost in 7 to cup champs) --------------------------------- TBD
YR10: (Captain re-signed to 8yr) Missed the playoffs ------------------- TBD
YR11: Third round (lost in 7 to cup champs) ------------------------------- TBD
YR12: Swept in the first round -------------------------------------------------- TBD
YR13: Won the cup ------------------------------------------------------------------ TBD

This is Tampa's pathway to a cup, it took 13 seasons. The leafs are entering year 5, and the current GM is entering year 3. Let's pump the breaks a bit on the whole "they must win now" thing. The leafs could potentially draft a goalie, develop him for 5 years and win a cup with him and still take less time than tampa took. Building a winner takes a LONG time

imo, the leafs should not have made the playoffs in year, nor should they even have got their in year 2, but they did, and they played damn good, which sent expectations through the roof. But we still gotta understand, the core of this team is 23-24. There's like 2 guys in their 30s. This team has a long way to go before they get a cup