The Maple Leafs outperformed Montreal Ottawa and Boston combined in the draft and nobody gave them credit

You have to give the Maple Leafs credit for their draft record because despite a lack of assets, they are leaps and bounds ahead of their biggest rivals.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have five players who have reached the NHL since being drafted from 2021-2023 which is impressive given their lack of real draft capital. Montreal, Boston, and Ottawa have only six combined NHLers in the same time frame. While you can argue they've traded some of that future away, they've also done a good job at drafting regardless.

Since 2021, the Maple Leafs have actually had quite an impressive stretch of players who have made the leap to the NHL. They drafted Matthew Knies 57th overall in 2021, Fraser Minten, Dennis Hildeby, and Nikita Grebenkin 38th, 122nd and 135th overall respectively in 2022 then Easton Cowan 28th overall in 2023.

Toronto made a powerhouse pipeline with much less than any of their biggest rivals

All these players have not only made the NHL jump but are key parts of their respective teams. Cowan, Knies and Hildeby are still with Toronto and part of the future core to build around meanwhile Minten and Grebenkin have earned roles with the Bruins and Flyers after being dealt away.

However if you take a look at their biggest rivals, you actually start to realize that maybe Toronto's drafting record is a lot better than what it seems at first glance. Montreal has only four NHLers in the same span (Lane Hutson, Juraj Slafkovsky, Oliver Kapanen, Logan Mailloux) meanwhile Ottawa has Zach Ostapchuk and Boston has Matthew Poitras.

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The most impressive thing is that Toronto did this with only 11 picks total as opposed to the 69 that the other three teams had. In fact, Boston hasn't had a player with over 100 NHL games played except Mason Lohrei in 2020; no one else has more than 69 games.

You have to credit Kyle Dubas for his ability to gather the best intel available and make these picks. The only real blip you could say was that he was unable to find a way to draft Hutson over to Toronto, but otherwise adding Grebenkin, Minten and Hildeby in the same draft is nothing to ignore.

The Maple Leafs' draft track record shows that they're in good hands as long as John Chayka listens to his scouts

While Dubas is the one who made the final call, it wasn't without his band of scouting geniuses giving him the best advice possible. Toronto at the time had John Lilley (now Director of Player Personnel and Player Development with the Rangers) and he made the decision to draft Knies at 57th overall.

Toronto also had Wes Clark, Troy Bodie, and Eric Joyce all working with Dubas to provide him the knowledge needed to draft properly and he was built to succeed given how deep and analytical the entire group was.

Which is why it's so exciting for fans that John Chayka is in charge. Yes, he has a bit of a spotty draft record and comes with some concerns but he's the analytical mind that Dubas was and will have a great supporting cast.

He has Mark Leach who helped run Dallas' scouting team for years, plus there's some very good European scouts like Radim Jelinek, Mikael Kotkaniemi, and Viktor Alm. There's a real onus on getting guys who may be passed over (Tinus Luc Koblar, Miroslav Holinka) because they have underlying traits that make them future NHL players.

As long as Chayka doesn't get too in his own head with regard to who he prefers to draft (besides Gavin McKenna of course) then it could turn out to be another fruitful draft where Toronto sees multiple draft picks find themselves in the lineup only a couple seasons from now.

This is probably the one time that fans want history to repeat itself for the Maple Leafs.

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