The Toronto Maple Leafs went from having a bleak looking draft to having, well, the opposite. The fact that they managed to turn the worst season of the Auston Matthews era into the first-overall pick with a future star projected to go at the top is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Nobody expected…

Toronto Maple Leafs 2024 first-round pick Ben Danford isn’t the shiniest name in the Maple Leafs’ prospect cupboard, but he’s one who will endear himself to the fans that appreciate the ones who go into the trenches. Danford, a 6-foot-1 right-handed defenceman out of the Belleville, Ontario area, just wrapped up his junior career and…