A look back at the Mark Hunter drafts in Toronto and what could have been
The Mark Hunter years in Toronto are a bit of a mixed-bag. One one hand, he gave us Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews. On the other hand, he didn't really give us much else. Today, we're going to look at what could have been.
So let's break this down into years where Hunter drafted. Also first round picks, especially as high as the Leafs had drafted are basically a wash. Matthews was a no brainer, and you could argue the same for Mitch Marner. But true draft wizards make their name from the 2nd round and beyond. Let's start with 2015
The Leafs' 2015 draft choices were Mitch Marner, Travis Dermott, Jeremy Bracco, Andrew Nielsen, Martin Dzierkals, Jesper Lindgren, Dmytro Timashov, Stephen Desrocher, and finally Nikita Korostelev.
Take Marner out of the equation. Travis Dermott, is an okay pick, but it's hard to argue Sebastian Aho, who was taken with the very next pick, wasn't a much better choice for a lead a scout to make. Other picks taken after Dermott in this round include, Brandon Carlo, MacKenzie Blackwood, Eric Cernak and Vince Dunn.
Hunter closed out the 2nd round with diminutive forward Jeremy Bracco. As far as who the Leafs could have used that pick on, Anthony Cirelli was available. He has since gone on to win back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Leafs got a total of 39 games from Timashov, but nobody drafted after him has played a single game for the Leafs. Fun fact, Kirill Kaprizov was taken in the 5th round.
The Leafs' 2016 draft choices included Auston Matthews, Egor Korshkov, Carl Grundstrom, Joseph Woll, J.D Greenway, Adam Brooks, Keaton Middleton, Vladimir Bobylev, Jack Walker, Nicolas Mattinen, and Nikolai Chebykin. Oh boy this one is rough.
Aside from Matthews, the Leafs have only gotten NHL games from Woll, and Brooks. Grundstrom was part of the Muzzin trade, so that's a mild victory here. Guys drafted after Korshkov go as follows, Alex Debrincat, Samuel Gerard, Carter Hart, and the ultimate kicker, Adam Fox who we had THREE cracks at. Excluding Auston Matthews, the Leafs prospects in this crop has played a total of 137 NHL games. 101 come from Grundstrom.
The Leafs' 2017 draft choices include Timothy Liljegren, Eemeli Rasanen, Ian Scott, Vladislav Kara, Fedor Gordeev, Ryan Mcgregor, Ryan O'Connell. This was a bulkier draft for the Leafs. Most of these guys are over 6 feet tall and 200+ pounds. One notable player that the Leafs could have drafted that went after Liljegren was Ottawa's Josh Norris. Including the first rounder this time, 32 NHL games were played by the Leafs' picks from 2017, all owned by Liljegren.
This is a putrid run of picks by Mark Hunter at a crucial part of this rebuild. No excuses. Kyle Dubas has made something out of parts of this pile of garbage and needs to be commended. The right AGM was selected as Lou's successor.
To sum this up quickly, in 3 years of drafting, Hunter never got an NHL game out of a single player drafted after the 5th round. He also only drafted one NHL regular outside of Marner, Dermott and Matthews, and it was Carl Grundstrom.
I need a drink.
