Introducing the 2017 TLN Summer Prospect Top 20 Rankings

The ones may still be cold and the sun may still be shining in this rainy city, but it’s clear that summer is getting closer and closer to the end.

Once we get to this point in the season, we start to see the annual traditions of back to school commercials, the Blue Jays getting just good enough to break your heart, and of course, the internet’s most notoriously polarizing prospect rankings!

By the time it’s 9 am Monday morning, your first real prospects article from The Leafs Nation for this season will be coming out online. We’re leading it off with the unranked prospects: a group of six guys who, uh, didn’t crack ANYONE’S top 20. After that, we’ll do a day of honourable mentions, and then head right into prospect #20.

Nothing out of the ordinary, but we’re sticking with anyone who’s in the Leafs organization and is Calder Trophy eligible. From NHL.com

It’s a model that’s worked out well and you’ll be able to get the same quality content that will make you angry either way.

That being said,  because the Leafs do legitimately have one of the deepest forward groups in the NHL (and anyone that tells you otherwise is either a hater or Kyle Krische, or both), there are a lot of decent prospects who are not Calder Trophy eligible. Starting Friday, we’ll do a series of 5 feature Future Star Fridays highlighting a few prospects who are still in the Leafs’ group. We didn’t want to make any special exceptions, so for example, Kasperi Kapanen is not eligible. We did argue about him here though:

We’ll also sprinkle in some other fun content alongside the top 20, which will be released every morning at 9 am on every weekday from now until September 14th. Pick #20 comes in on Wednesday.

I’ll take a post or four, but we’ve also got:

Hope to see you read along, and if you have any questions or suggestions the comments are below and you can also reach us on twitter at @TLNdc.

Have a good night, folk’s,,,