Young Maple Leafs prospect comes out of the gates hot to start his 2024-25 campaign

The Toronto Maple Leafs took a bit of a gamble on young Swedish defenseman Victor Johansson in the 4th round of the 2024 NHL Entry Draft, selecting the lanky blueliner with the 120th overall pick.

The pick was met with some early skepticism, as Johansson was a very light 147 pounds at the time of the draft, despite standing right around 6'1" as an 18-year-old. However, since that time, Johansson has managed to pack on a little bit of weight since the NHL Scouting Combine and has bulked up to 159 lbs, according to Elite Prospects.

The increase in weight appears to have helped Johansson, who produced just 8 points in 34 games in Sweden's Jr league last season. So far this year, through 2 games, Johansson has already produced 3 points.

Granted, it's very early to be getting excited about this prospect. 2 games is a very small sample size, and even if most of his production were primary assists, we should probably temper our expectations. Johansson was viewed as a bit of a project from the very beginning and that's what he'll be for the next number of seasons, even though he did draw an interesting comparison this summer, with Leafs AGM Dr. Hayley Wickenheiser stating that he reminded her of a younger John Klingberg, who was a tremendous offensive talent before injuries caught up with him.

The encouraging part of all of this is that Johansson's start is a positive one. This is a player who was surprised he was even drafted at all, let alone in the 4th round, so the Leafs must see something in his game, attitude, work ethic or all of the above to have taken a flyer on him when they did.

While he does shoot left, Leksands IF J20 has played him on the right side in the early going this season. He also had looks there in the preseason. If they can develop this kid to play either side, it will give the Leafs some additional flexibility in the pipeline and perhaps even create a clearer path for him to the NHL -- though that would still be a few years down the road.

Source: Elite Prospects
Victor Johnsson stats and bio