Draft gambles take time to pay
Did Leafs make right choice with Marner? Only time will tell
It’s a debate that’s going to be raging for a while.
Mitch Marner or Noah Hanifin? Did the Maple Leafs take the wrong guy again? Or will we learn over time that Mark Hunter is, in fact, a genius?
Ah, the fun of the NHL draft process. People love to declare winners and losers on draft day, but the truth is this plays out over years. And part of what distorts perceptions is the belief in some corners that it’s a race to see who gets to the NHL first.
The Leafs lived that experience for years with Nazem Kadri. Trying to be patient with him and carefully develop his skills just got them blasted for being mean. The fact that now, more than six years after he was selected after Oliver Ekman-Larsson but before Scott Glennie, Kadri’s starting to look like a very good pick and a maturing NHLer, well, you won’t hear those who believe he should have been in the NHL four years ago acknowledging the Leafs might have brought him along correctly.
With Marner and Hanifin, the Leafs had to choose between elite skill and a big, relatively risk-free blueliner sure to play in the league for a decade, and they went with Marner fourth overall. He’s still in junior hockey and figures to be a marquee performer for Canada at the world juniors starting this month in Helsinki.
Hanifin, meanwhile, is already in the NHL. He’s six-foot-three, still just 18 years old and has played 28 of Carolina’s first 29 games. He’ll play 15 minutes some nights, 18 minutes other nights.
If it’s first-past-the-post, Carolina wins. But of course, it isn’t.
Heck, if we were to do Kadri’s draft all over, John Tavares would still go first, Ekman-Larsson might supplant Victor Hedman at No. 2, Ryan O’Reilly (31st) would be a top-five pick and Tyson Barrie would be a first-rounder (he went 64th).
In other words, nobody can decide the Marner vs. Hanifin debate yet, and probably not for another five years. Or longer.
The fun of this month for Leaf fans is that they’ll get to tune into the world juniors and take a good measure of Marner’s potential for themselves. Sure, some have seen him play for the London Knights — 58 points in 25 games — but this will be an overseas test against topflight international competition.
He’ll almost certainly be in the NHL next season because he can’t play in the AHL and sending him back to junior again — he was second in OHL scoring last season — would seem to lack purpose.
So let’s see how ready Marner looks.
A number of Toronto picks will be in the tournament, which may or may not be an indication of the quality of the club’s recent drafts. Recall the 2003 world juniors in Halifax. Five Leaf draft picks — Ian White, Carlo Colaiacovo, Brendan Bell, Matt Stajan and Kyle Wellwood — were on the Canadian team coached by Marc Habscheid that won silver.
Maxim Kondratiev, a defenceman picked by the Leafs, played for the Russian gold medallists led by Alex Ovechkin. Alexander Steen, Toronto’s first pick in ’02, played for Team Sweden.
Lots of bodies, but none of those players became stars for the Leafs. Steen has become a top-six forward with the St. Louis Blues, and otherwise only Colaiacovo and Stajan are still in the league.
So let the ’03 world juniors be a cautionary tale against getting too excited, Leaf fans.
With that cautionary note, Marner is only the biggest name from a group of Leaf prospects participating in the world juniors that has the Toronto organization quietly optimistic (again) about how they could figure in the team’s future.
There’s William Nylander, eighth overall in 2014, playing for Sweden, along with dynamic forward Dmy- tro Timashov, 125th overall last June. The Leafs like Timashov (53 points in 29 games with Quebec) so much they’ve already signed him and have him pegged to be a Marlie next season.
Defenceman Travis Dermott (34th) is still waiting to see if he’ll be on the final Team Canada roster. Kasperi Kapanen, the former Pittsburgh first-rounder picked up in the Phil Kessel deal, will be suiting up for the host Finns, who are likely to feature two strapping wingers, Patrik Laine and Jesse Puljujarvi, expected to be top 10 picks next June.
So that’s five Leaf picks possibly in for the world juniors, and Marner, Nylander, Timashov and Kapanen are tests of whether Toronto’s apparent belief that smaller may be better is going to work out for the organization.
Meanwhile, the Marner-or-Hanifin philosophical debate could resurface in six months at the 2016 draft. As of Friday, the Leafs were 29th, which if the draft were held today would guarantee them no worse than the fifth overall pick under the revised draft lottery process.
Starting in June, the lottery will determine not just the first pick but the first three picks. So the Leafs, almost winners of the Connor McDavid lottery last year, could finish dead-last in the NHL and still have to wait until the No. 4 slot.
Let’s say that’s where they end up. Auston Matthews, the American youngster playing in Switzerland, will go first overall. The most recent Sportsnet rankings had London winger Matthew Tkachuk (son of Keith) and Puljujarvi going second and third. After that, we’re looking at the six-foot-four Laine, Sarnia Sting hulking defenceman Jakob Chychrun, Alexander Nylander (brother of William) and diminutive Team USA pivot Clayton Keller.
So it could again come down to, say, taking Chychrun or another Nylander. Or Laine versus Keller. Same debate. Size versus skill.
These drafts are going to determine whether Brendan Shanahan, Mike Babcock et al can actually build a winner anytime in the foreseeable future.
But we won’t know for years if they’re bang on in their assessments or way, way off.
In recent times, the Leafs have been rolling the dice and taking the risky path least travelled. If the NHL ever decides to open up the game and let offence breathe again, this could really pay off. Damien Cox is a broadcaster with Rogers Sportsnet and a regular contributor to Hockey Night in Canada. He spent nearly 30 years covering a variety of sports for the Star, and his column appears here Saturdays. Follow him @DamoSpin.