Toronto’s Connor Brown, second from right, and Arizona’s Dylan Strome, second from left, chase after the puck while playing shinny with Edmonton’s Connor McDavid, left, and Mitch Marner during the NHLPA Rookie Showcase in Toronto on Sept. 1.Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
The Toronto Maple Leafs freefall in the standings the past two years has not been for naught.
More than anything, that will be in evidence starting on Friday in London, Ont., as the Leafs' next generation takes the ice, facing off against the Ottawa Senators' young guns in Game 1 of their annual rookie tournament.
Brendan Shanahan's vision for the Leafs is paying off, in increments. For the first time in decades – and perhaps, you could argue, in franchise history – drafting and development has become Toronto's primary focus.
In the 17 months since he was hired as president, the Leafs have gone from a mediocre group of young players to one of the more well-stocked cupboards leaguewide.
"It's not just the top two guys – they have a very deep system of quality prospects," said ESPN's prospect guru Corey Pronman, who ranks the Leafs as having the NHL's second best stable next to only the Edmonton Oilers. "Kasperi Kapanen, Jeremy Bracco and Connor Brown are all guys I think with varying chances to be upper-half-of-the-lineup players."
"They've done a great job," new Leafs GM Lou Lamoriello said of Shanahan and his lieutenants, Mark Hunter and Kyle Dubas.
"The majority of [our prospects] have creativity and speed, which is really parallel with the way the game is going. There's been a focus with that."
In addition to slotting the Leafs prospects second in the NHL – up from 17th last summer – Pronman also lists eight Toronto players among the top 100 prospects in the league.
Six of the eight were acquired under Shanahan's watch: Mitch Marner, William Nylander, Kapanen, Bracco, Scott Harrington and Brendan Leipsic.
The Leafs prospect pool has benefited enormously from having two picks in the top eight the past two years – Nylander at eighth overall in 2014 and Marner at fourth this past June – but also from the team's big sell-off of assets.
The return from Pittsburgh in the Phil Kessel trade on July 1 may have been underwhelming, but it still netted two second-tier prospects in Kapanen and Harrington, who are expected to be big factors on the Toronto Marlies and challenge for call-ups this season.
Leipsic, meanwhile, was one of the Nashville Predators top young players until Shanahan was able to land him in the deal that sent two rentals (Cody Franson and Mike Santorelli) there before the trade deadline.
Add in a couple intriguing 2015 second-round picks such as Bracco – a high-scoring winger who will star for Boston College (and likely the U.S. world junior team) this year – and Erie Otters defenceman Travis Dermott, and there's what appears to be a foundation for the Leafs' road back up the standings.
Most of which has been added in less than a year and a half.
"Trading Phil Kessel helps," Pronman said, "but I don't think turning a prospect pool around is too difficult. … The real challenge is finding a way to get four or five impact players from your system."
The Leafs may get there. But having a lot of enticing prospects and winning a lot of NHL games two or three years later don't always go hand-in-hand. You don't have to look much further than the Oilers for an example of an organization that has struggled to turn talented youth into a talented team, although there are plenty of other cautionary tales around the league.
The Leafs are trying to avoid that by making development a top priority. They have built both a player-development department – headed by former NHLer Scott Pellerin – and a player-evaluation department in recent months, trying to take advantage of MLSE's considerable resources and ability to spend outside the salary cap.
They have also added former Brooklyn Nets strength coach Jeremy Bettle as director of sports science and performance and overhauled their strength and conditioning staff.
And with an overload of prospects and newcomers this season, the Leafs intend to use their ECHL affiliate team in Orlando as a sort of Double A club, cycling prospects through to get them more ice time when necessary.
The Marlies were one of the AHL's youngest and most dominant teams over the second half of last season – going 30-12-5 after Christmas – and should only improve given the new additions. The Leafs have also signed so many fill-in types at the NHL level that there won't be any need to rush a player such as Nylander, allowing him to dominate in his first full AHL season.
That kind of "over-ripening" process is something Lamoriello says management has discussed at length this summer, as his ideas are blended with those of Shanahan, Hunter and Dubas.
"You have to keep it as simple as possible: Put it in stepping stone stages," Lamoriello explained, calling the emphasis on prospects and development the group's "mission statement" from Shanahan. "Understand that you have to crawl before you walk and walk before you run … you don't rush them. You don't get too excited right away. You don't think that 'he's there.'
"I've always said it's just like an injury: When a player feels he's ready, you always wait two more weeks. It's the same with young players: As soon as you think they're ready, you wait a little longer. If you make a mistake, make it that you bring them up too late rather than too soon."
Lamoriello then pointed to his first high pick with the New Jersey Devils – when he selected Shanahan second over all in 1987 – as an example, albeit one from another era.
Shanahan played in the NHL that first season, but did so sparingly as Lamoriello attempted to acclimatize the big winger slowly to the league.
"He was too good to go back to junior but not quite ready for the NHL," Lamoriello said. "So he had a slower process the first year. You had to work with that. And look at the player he became."
Rank among NHL's top 100
Mitch Marner: 4th (2015 first-rounder)
William Nylander: 6th (2014 first-rounder)
Kasperi Kapanen: 29th (Kessel trade in 2015)
Jeremy Bracco: 39th (2015 second-rounder)
Connor Brown: 72nd (2012 sixth-rounder)
Andreas Johnson: 77th (2013 seventh-rounder)
Scott Harrington: 84th (Kessel trade in 2015)
Brendan Leipsic: 97th (Franson trade in 2015)
Honorable Mention: Travis Dermott (2015 second-rounder)
(via ESPN)