notdoneyet
Registered User
Good on the draw. He was the center in the ice on 5-3 and he win the faceoff. And cleared the puck
Impressive 200 ft game
Prospect Info: Marlies/Prospects Thread - 2023-23 Season Edition
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Impressive 200 ft game
Don’t really have any concerns with Minten. Just needs to get quicker, faster, and stronger. If he takes significant steps there, I could see him developing into a good middle 6 C for us in the mould of an Anton Lundell. Next year will be huge for him.
I like taking players like this that are very projectable at the next level, similar to Knies. Guys who have NHL +size, great hockey sense, compete level, physicality, good skill (albeit not game breaking), and disruptive sticks.
Sometimes you’ll miss out on a Lane Hutson or Alex Debrincat, but I think it’s worth it considering the types of players that typically excel in the playoffs.
I like taking players like this that are very projectable at the next level, similar to Knies. Guys who have NHL +size, great hockey sense, compete level, physicality, good skill (albeit not game breaking), and disruptive sticks.
Sometimes you’ll miss out on a Lane Hutson or Alex Debrincat, but I think it’s worth it considering the types of players that typically excel in the playoffs.
The Iceman
Registered User
- Sep 22, 2007
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Interesting question.
Who are some of the coaches from the past to give a better idea of the future.
There is no doubt the Marlies have attracted some very good coaches recently.
And a common denominator is they usually go on to bigger jobs.
Steve Spott
Sheldon Keefe
Greg Gilbert
Paul Maurice
Dallas Eakins
If I had to throw a single name out there I would say Manny Malhotra. Especially if this current version of the Leafs coaching staff gets blown up maybe the Leafs would want to groom him at the Marlies.
A name like Wellwood doesn't move the needle for me.
SprDaVE
Moderator
- Sep 20, 2008
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I'd be surprised if Manny would take that kind of job but it's not impossible. As you said, the Marlies HC job is pretty significant in terms of money and prestige. You get a spotlight there if you do well. Could be a step for him to prove he can be a good head coach.
I offered Travis Green this time last year when I was calling to change the Marlies coaching staff. Not sure he'll get a NHL job anytime soon and maybe taking a step back like Eakins did would be good for him. He knows Toronto pretty well and was highly regarded when he coached the AHL club for the Canucks.
Chris Dennis worked for the Leafs as an assistant/video coach under people like Quinn, Maurice, Wilson and Carlyle. He also spent time as an assistant coach in the AHL. He's been the head coach of the Kitchener Rangers for the past year. Could be a really good target.
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Eric Wellwood would be a solid choice. Successful at every level, and thinks the game as well as just about anyone. He’s on the rise for sure.
Farm futures: Five Marlies that could play a role with the Maple Leafs
Holmberg has shown he can play in the NHL but was caught in the numbers at the trade deadline.
www.thestar.com
Pontus Holmberg, centre
He stumbled towards the end of the season with the Marlies, perhaps disappointed he had been sent down. But the Leafs were adding forwards (Ryan O’Reilly, Noel Acciari and Sam Lafferty) at the trade deadline and he was the only skater who didn’t require waivers to be sent to the Marlies.
“(Holmberg has) set himself up really well for his future,” Moore said before being let go. “He was obviously with the Leafs for quite a stretch and proved to be able to play at that level. His time here, you can tell he was on a different level than a lot of other players in this league.”
Holmberg, coming off a two-year deal with an average annual value of $827,500 (U.S.), has arbitration rights. Something in that neighbourhood should ensure his return.
Bobby McMann, forward
“It’s been a lot of up and down (this season),” McMann said. “It was fun though. Having that opportunity with the Leafs, getting to play those games and gain that experience and get to see what that level was like was pretty cool.”
The late-blooming 26-year-old from Wainwright, Alta., has one year left of an entry level deal of $762,500.
“A lot of our players this year who’ve got an opportunity up with the Leafs have shown and proven that they’re knocking on the doorstep and Bobby is definitely one of them,” Moore said. “I think his game lends itself to that style of play in that level quite well.”
Alex Steeves, forward
Like Holmberg, he was caught up in a numbers game after the Leafs started acquiring veteran forwards for a playoff run. But his nose wasn’t out of joint.
“Obviously as someone who’s signed on for another year and this is my first team and where I chose to start my career, I feel like I’m a part of (the Leafs’ future),” he said in February. “For me, it’s just continuing to try to be better and better.”
Steeves, 23, has one year left on an entry-level deal paying him $834,167 a year.
Roni Hirvonen, forward
The 21-year-old former captain of Finland’s junior team came to the Marlies after HIFK’s playoffs ended, but he was injured and didn’t play. The Leafs are high on the leadership skills the five-foot-nine centre brings.
“He’s got a lot of skill and ability,” Moore said. “I really like what I’ve seen and especially as a person. He’s a very serious, focused young man.”
The second-round pick from the 2020 draft will be in the second year of an entry-level deal paying him $856,667 a year.
Topi Niemela, defence
Part of the reason the Leafs might have chosen to move on from Rasmus Sandin, a young puck-moving blueliner, is they have Niemela, a similar player who is just 21. He’s right-handed, too. Like Sandin, he’s five-foot-11, on the small side but sleek and skilled. A third-round pick from the 2020 draft, has played for Finland’s junior and senior teams.
He came over at the end of the 2022–23 season, getting into six regular-season games and seven playoff games, scoring three goals and adding four assists.
“The game is much faster,” Niemela said of his first experience in the AHL. “You don’t have to think. There’s not that much space and time for the puck.”
He is likely to play most of the 2023-24 season with the Marlies, but he’s a quick learner on a favourable deal and will likely get some time in the NHL. He has two years left on an entry-level deal paying him $856,667 a year.
SeaOfBlue
The Passion That Unites Us All
- Aug 1, 2013
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I suspect that whoever the Leafs hire, both for this position and for the position left vacant by Carbery, will be an insurance policy for Keefe. I think Keefe starts the year, and he may even finish out the year, but whoever is taking these jobs knows that Keefe only has one year left on his current deal and that there will be a new GM.
So we should be getting some pretty high end, NHL-caliber candidates for both of these jobs. Maybe that is Travis Green, but I do not think it will be a guy like Dennis or Wellwood. They are more likely AHL assistant coaching candidates since we need two of those as well.
Leaf Fans
Registered User
- Sep 29, 2017
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Mitch Love from the Wranglers is the guy I would like to see replace Carbery.
Jimmy Firecracker
Backcheck, Forecheck, Paycheque.
'He’s a guy that is really driven': How Maple Leafs prospect Fraser Minten earned success
The Maple Leafs picked Minten 38th in the 2022 NHL Draft and have since seen his game improve.
On a visit down to the team’s bench during one of the Blazers’ practices shortly after that return run-in at the team’s rink, the Sandman Centre, it was Minten, the hotshot top selection of the Leafs in the draft just months earlier, who he found giving nicknames to camp invitees, high-fiving the rookies, and enthusiastically yelling “Good shift, great shift!” whenever someone arrived at the bench.
“They all look up to him but here’s this kid who got drafted in the second round by Toronto,” Sandland said, quietly laughing to himself.
Those who know Minten, and his journey to being selected with the 38th pick in last year’s draft, say those little stories are revealing as to how he got to where he is.
Minten, they’ll all say — as will he — was never a top prospect … until he was.
He’s the kid who didn’t make any of Canada’s three teams for the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge (“I don’t know how,” Sandland said) and wasn’t invited to Canada’s under-18 camp in Calgary.
But he’s also the kid who told Sandland in the aftermath of both those omissions that while he was really disappointed, he’d prove them wrong, and eventually did, securing an invite back to Calgary for Canada’s under-20 camp last summer, where staff said he was one of the better forwards.
Today, Sandland believes Minten should be “a lock” to make the 2024 world juniors team for the tournament in Gothenburg, Sweden.
But Minten had to earn that status, a status he now shies away from, through a slow, steady climb.
Standing in the bowels of the Sandman Centre on a day off between games at the Memorial Cup, Shaun Clouston, Kamloops’ head coach and general manager, is talking about why, on a team with nine drafted NHL players all of whom are older than Minten, it’s Minten who wears one of its letters. Minten is also the team’s fifth-youngest player,
“He’s a guy that sort of has a real good sense of the pulse of the team,” Clouston explains. “He’s always engaged in whatever we’re doing. He finds ways to get better. He’s a guy that is really driven. And he’s really important in lots of ways. He factors into our offence for sure. He plays a great 200-foot game. He’s a big part of our power play and he’s one of our top penalty killers most nights. So he’s a real important piece.”
Maybe more importantly is that none of this was ever promised.
uncleben
Global Moderator
Looks like we let Kalle Loponen and Josh Pillar go
leafsfan2point0
Registered User
- Jun 8, 2011
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4-4 in the 3rd between Kamloops and Peterborough. Minten has been winning most face offs, gets defensive zone starts and killing penalties. Just ripped a laser off the crossbar to start the 3rd.
keonsbitterness
Registered User
He did but wow I'm pumped. After they got beat 10-2 I thought they were done for but this Petes team has been very resilient.
Regardless of what happens the rest of the way they have had a hell of a season.
justashadowof
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- Aug 15, 2020
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He was a smart player who was instantly identifiable as a potential coach. He seems destined to be an NHL head coach.
weems
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- Jul 3, 2008
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ULF_55
Moderator
Minten took 31 faceoffs in that game?
20/31
Only watched end of 2nd. and the 3rd. period. Zellweger was the only player that caught my eye in a good way.
Was the ice bad?
Didn't look like Kamloops could make or take a pass.
Kamloops keeper style called "freestyle?"
I kept waiting the hear mention of Minten ...
weems
Registered User
- Jul 3, 2008
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Yep he's been quiet offensively.
Have to hope next season with some players leaving, his role expands and he can be put in more prime offensive spots to produce.
Thru 4 games
BertCorbeau
F*ck cancer - RIP Fugu and Buffaloed
Fogelhund
Registered User
- Sep 15, 2007
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Taking his game to Russia, is probably a good move for SDA. He was making $70k in the minors here, he'll probably make more over there. He was making some decent progress with the Marlies, but I don't think he has a NHL future in him. He'll be 23 come the start of the next season. Best of luck in Russia.
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I've watched parts of most of the Memorial Cup games, and they've been a lot of fun to watch. Minten is a solid player, and I think he'll make a good Kampf replacement one day, as a good two way 3C, with ok offensive skills, but moreso very good defensive skills. I really like what he brings to the table.
Apex Predator
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- Jun 21, 2019
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If SDA goes to Russia how long do we keep his rights. I don’t think he has an NHL future but if he can chill in Russia and not take a contract spot than no big deal.
Menzinger
Kessel4LadyByng
I think the Leafs just need to qualify him and they retain them until they're like 27
Was never really high on SDA if I am being completely honest. He wasn't skilled enough to crack it in the top-6 and he didn't look to bring much else either.
I see him as a shittier version of Nick Abruzzese TBH. Who is by no means a guarantee to make it to the NHL either. They play similar styles, and if I were a betting man, I would say Nick is the far more predictable and adaptable of the 2.
Shortly after SDA’s well earned call up he attempted a controlled zone entry and turned the puck over at the blue line. Sheldon Keefe didn’t trust him after that and he never got another game with the big club.
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