Toronto Maple Leafs - 2022 Entry Draft - 2nd Rd Pick (38th OA) - Fraser Minten (C)

[Confucius]

Good deal, we see benefits right away.

 

[All Mod Cons]

I wonder if Dubas wanted to trade down again to grab Minten but there were no takers, so he took the guy he wanted as a reach

I don't believe so. By all accounts he was in our top 15, and better than anything we could've gotten at #25, so that's a boon.

 

[RoadWarrior]

It's the below NHL average skating. It's all about the skating. We need people who can skate and you can tweak it a bit but that's it. He's slow and just more than likely will not cut it.

He's well above average for the WHL. If you look at this draft or drafts in general 95% of the players are below average skaters for the NHL at age 17 or 18. Obviously the leafs feel that he will get stronger and faster as time progresses.

 

[Brobust]

Another comparison between these 2 players..

The Arizona Coyotes traded picks No. 27, No. 34 and No. 45 in this year's draft with the SJ Sharks for the #11 overall and with the pick, the Coyotes took Conor Geekie.

The Toronto Maple Leafs traded their #25 overall pick along with Petr Mrazek to acquire Hawks 2nd rounder #38 overall and with the pick the Leafs drafted Frazer Minton.

Arizona could have drafted Minton 2 X and almost 3 with their own picks but used 1st and 2 X 2nds to move up to take Geekie.

So based on draft pick capital invested these 2 players are very different.

PS. SJ also passed on Minton and ironically the player they took with the #45 OA pick dman Mattias Hävelid (a much higher ranked prospect than Minton by scouting agencies), might have been whom the Leafs should have selected at #38. While I'm not personally thrilled with smaller DMan 5-10/175 this kid might have been BPA at Leafs selection nonetheless, so I'm going to be watching how that player comparison to Minton works out over time.

I don't know what kind of point you're trying to make.

 

[The Podium]

I don't know what kind of point you're trying to make.

I don’t think Mess ever has a point

 

[Martin Skoula]

I don’t think Mess ever has a point

It's what Mess has always been saying, he's tired of Dubas drafting large physical two way forwards and really wishes Dubas would get over his biases and draft more 5'10 170 pound LD. Everyone knows that if we drafted Havelid, Mess and his friends would be the first to congratulate Dubas for a job well done.

 

[kb]

I don't know what kind of point you're trying to make.

Neither does he. A common theme.

I don’t think Mess ever has a point

Babcock and Lou infallable, Dubas and Keefe can do nothing right.

Like always.

 

[Leaf Fans]

I don’t think Mess ever has a point

He definitely follows young prospects, but for the current team especially management, I agree with you.

 

[Dekes For Days]

I don't know what kind of point you're trying to make.

Clearly, we should be following Arizona's lead when it comes to drafting.

 

[BertCorbeau]

C- Fraser Minten - 18.2 - 6'1" - 185lbs - Kamloops Blazers

D0: 67GP, 20G, 0.82PPG, 11.38 Adj.NHLe (41st of 172)
D-1: 20GP, 20GP, 4G, 0.9PPG, 13.20 Adj.NHLe. (7th of 113)

The production in his D-1 wasn't crazy special, but it showed a player that had 1st round pedigree going into his draft year. Yes it was a SSS with the WHL playing only so many games, but the guy had a 0.9 PPG as a guy who played the entire season as a 16 year old.

WHL Players U17 season above .9 PPG (at least 20GP)

2020-21 - Connor Geekie, Matthew Ward & Frazer Minten.
2019-20 - Cole Sillinger & Dylan Guenther
2017-18 - Dylan Cozens & Kirby Dach (had a 0.89)
2014-15 - Nolan Patrick & Sam Steel (had a 0.89)
2013-14 - Mat Barzal

Besides Matthew Ward (who I really liked as well, but has size & skating issues) and Frazer Minten, every single one of those guys were a 1st round pick. 6 of them went in the top-15, Barzal should have. The difference with Minten is that his D0 numbers didn't explode like most of the guys above did. His production this season was sandwiched between Ivan Miroshnichenko (20th OA) and Nathan Gaucher (22nd OA). Please don't look at his raw numbers or raw NHLe and think to yourself "they swung on a no offense, no upside pick". They didn't.

Firstly the team he played on was the Logan Stankoven show- a guy I had ranked in the early teens last year and showed just how dominant he was as a player this year having 44 (!!) more points than second place on his team. Let's not kid ourselves, we just picked up the 2C on one of the best teams in the WHL. They didn't score the most (still scored a lot), but they gave up the second fewest goals. The production was split evenly between the rest of the team with 5 different guys having between 60 and 54 points. They played this team (besides Stankoven) very evenly, and IIRC he didn't play top-PP for much of the season. They had 6 NHL prospects, and 3 guys who got drafted this year.

Here's where Bader's Star%/NHL% had him:

View attachment 566629

This is a guy who has legit upside to put up production in the NHL, and an [extremely] strong chance of being a NHL player. 23rd in star% for the draft and T-12th in chance of playing 100GP based on his profile.

Now for Minten himself. Firstly I'm really not sure where why or where he's gotten a "safe" player type of vibe from. It's even more funny that I've seen him compared to the Goat like 50 times in this thread alone. The guy straight up loves to shoot the puck, and he's very good at doing it too (over 3 shots/game this season). The issue is that his shooting produced very little goals and it produced even less xG. What I saw in the games I watched and the tracking data was that he shot the puck from everywhere, and not enough from HD places. He's a slick passer, knows how to find the slot and because he shoots so much I saw him draw players to himself and pass to an open man. He's also decent in transition per the microstats. I saw a lot of "dump and chase" type of player, but he was in the 80th percentile for transition for all players in the CHL & USHL. His skating is good, he has a fantastic motor, the defense is reportedly fantastic (to go along with a 71st percentile in Mitch Brown's tracking) and as we saw with Knies, Leaf fans drool over the physicality that comes with a top-6 player skillset.

All in all he's not the player I had most hoped for in our spot, but I feel extremely similar to when we picked Knies, except I like Minten more that I did Knies. Two guys who's production didn't improve enough in their D0's to be 1st round picks (despite fantastic production in their D-1), loves to shoot the puck, and knows how to use their big body to their advantage. Similar to Owen Beck, I think he's going to take off this upcoming season when the player blocking them (Stankoven/Hardy) are no longer with their team. If he can come out this year and throw up a 1.5 - 2 PPG type of season we're going to be wondering how we got him in the 2nd round.

Appreciate your write ups, you're detailed insights are awesome to read and are informative

 

[Leaf Fans]

A couple of highlights with Minton ( they are WHL playoffs not just Minten.

 

[Peasy]

If they were looking for a potential 2-way C I would have preferred someone like Sapovaliv. But theres so much variance at that point in the draft so we will see how it plays out. No point in bashing this pick without waiting ~2 years. Happy to have a potential C spec in the system though.

 

[LuLover96]

Alright guys, Canucks fan in (relative) peace. Can we truce for a few minutes before we go back to hating each other? Thanks lol.

My girlfriend has giants season tickets so I’ve seen this guy play a ton. I wanted Minten a lot, like top 25 pick a lot. He is so deceptive, and clever with and without the puck. He’s the guy who you won’t notice for most of the game, but by the end he’s scored a goal and added two assists. He can make really smart plays on both ends of the ice (needs more consistency in the Dzone), and has surprisingly good hands in close quarters without deking himself into a corner. Also annoyingly physical for someone of his size. He won’t be a play driver, but he’s a perfect fit if you can put him with a star or similar type player. Think a Bunting/Hyman mould.

When watching him though in the playoffs, the player I got a closest comparable to was a smaller Nick Paul. Not a superstar, but the guy who can win you a series on his own. I absolutely despise that I have to hate him now, because I truly believe he’s a gamer. If any of you care, I was similarly high on Logan Stankoven last year, who is now a top 5 player in the WHL.

Alright, back to hating you.

 

[nuck]

Hunter wasn't even good at his job running the draft table and he was supposed to be the draft guru. What makes you think he wouldve done a good job as the GM?

Also, most of our draft picks under Dubas have tracked insanely well and many would go much higher in a redraft. Guys like Knies, Robertson, Niemela went on to following their draft years to being 1st rounders In re drafts. Some might even argue top 15 picks. There is no reason to doubt these picks this year until they falter. Especially since every scouting report says that Minten's mature two way game and competitiveness will see him playing in the NHL.

I don't know what Hunter was. I believe when Lou was there he would have said "we need more of this type in the system" not Hunter going after his favorite types. As I mentioned in the Dubas thread these guys can bias a little bit here and there for a type but if they go too far from BPA they will just start missing and that is fatal. So the lists used are likely more to blame than the propensity of the drafter. If I say draft big and strong guys does that mean they need to go 10 spots off their BPA to find such a player? Maybe if I desperately want a freak like Rasanen I have to do that but probably only a couple of spots to find a less extreme specimen. Rasanen actually went around where he was ranked (58 McKeens, 42 ISS) so he wasn't a reach, just a miss.

Once Morrison was out of the way did Hunter ignore the list and go rogue on a guy like Korshkov? Maybe but I don't think they make that pick without Ari Vuori pushing it. Greenway was probably a Lilley find and again, I don't think he goes where he did without that endorsement, and those two were their good scouts. There was a big turnover in the regional scouts over the last several years, probably because they weren't delivering. Whatever the reason, Hunter's drafts were poor, but I tend to blame bad drafting on bad scouting. However he is the guy setting down the final list so did he fail at that last critical task?

I have nothing to guage whether he could have been a competent GM but nothing about his assistant GM career suggests he was a star in waiting.

 

[aingefan]

If he ends up in the NHL what he is in junior, a strong two-way player at C with a big shot, that sounds okay by me.
Between Knies, Tverberg and Minten, there’s a big physical talent at all three forward positions.
Good adds to the system.

 

[Future]

After more research, I’m optimistic about the pick. I’ve seen a few Nick Paul comparisons, but his skating is much better and his production blows Nick Paul’s out of the water at the same age.

As one of the youngest players in this year’s draft, I’m interested to see what kind of jump he can take next year. Considering our picks in recent years, it’d be very unusual for him not to take a massive leap in production.

 

[kb]

After more research, I’m optimistic about the pick. I’ve seen a few Nick Paul comparisons, but his skating is much better and his production blows Nick Paul’s out of the water at the same age.

As one of the youngest players in this year’s draft, I’m interested to see what kind of jump he can take next year. Considering our picks in recent years, it’d be very unusual for him not to take a massive leap in production.

He was one of the youngest in the draft too (just turned 18 5 days ago), and he's already 6'1", 187. That's a good sign too.

I'm more optimistic about this pick the more I read.

 

[BertCorbeau]

He was one of the youngest in the draft too (just turned 18 5 days ago), and he's already 6'1", 187. That's a good sign too.

I'm more optimistic about this pick the more I read.

I’ve been clamouring for the Leafs to invest more in their centre prospect pool. This pick was welcome and I’m really liking it despite the fact he might have been available later. Maybe not 79th OA, but sometime.

 

[kb]

I’ve been clamouring for the Leafs to invest more in their centre prospect pool. This pick was welcome and I’m really liking it despite the fact he might have been available later. Maybe not 79th OA, but sometime.

Sounded very much like Mtl and AZ had him in their sights in the second round with their extra picks.

 

[saltming]

Getting to know Leafs top 2022 pick Fraser Minten

Let’s all talk about the latest Toronto Maple Leaf top prospect

www.pensionplanpuppets.com

 

[Oscar Peterson]

I already like Minten just cause he plays piano haha. Rooting for him, no reason for me to be skeptical of our 2nd round drafting under Dubas.

 

[Holymakinaw]

I already like Minten just cause he plays piano haha. Rooting for him, no reason for me to be skeptical of our 2nd round drafting under Dubas.

It's gonna really suck when he gets all his fingers broken, playing Hockey.

 

[WTFMAN99]

If they were looking for a potential 2-way C I would have preferred someone like Sapovaliv. But theres so much variance at that point in the draft so we will see how it plays out. No point in bashing this pick without waiting ~2 years. Happy to have a potential C spec in the system though.

I thought the same way, scouting reports haven't been the greatest but trying to read as much as I can, seems like at least a 4C because of defensive play and speed and if he has a stupidly good D+1 year, maybe a 2C or likely a 3C....if he can be physical and good defensively, we can make use.

 

[I am toxic]

Invited to team Canada camp, right after Leafs' prospect camp?

 

[Maple Leaf]

Kind of like a pK specialist samuel pahlsson or frederick gauthier