The Outsiders: Who are the top Leafs players outside the NHL?

Since it’s essentially the off season, let’s continue to make with the offseason content with our fresh take on prospect rankings. Well, it’s not really prospect rankings since we’re looking at pretty much everyone who currently plays hockey for the organization while not occupying one of the 23 roster spots on the Leafs.

For the sake of clarity, that means the player is who is likely the top prospect in the organization is exempt from this prospect ranking. For the purpose of this project, Rasmus Sandin is a Maple Leaf. When the world went to shit, he was sitting on the NHL roster. Perhaps this will help make the #1 ranking a bit more debatable, though it still likely comes down to two players.

A couple of other players that are exempt and worth noting are Pierre Engvall and Calle Rosen. As much as I’d love to sing the praises of Engvall who at times looked like a lost cause who would never make it to North America, and has ended up making good. And Calle Rosen, a player who’s return would have been quite welcome even if it didn’t include the added bonus of Michael Hutchinson’s departure, would have been interesting additions to these rankings.

Additionally, rather than asking our TLN rankers to put twenty players in order from 1-20, we spiced things up with scoring them on two criteria. Perceived upside, how good do we think this player can be at full potential and NHL readiness, how likely are we to see them in the NHL soon. We gave the upside twice the weighting, as no ranking should see Kevin Gravel ahead of Nick Robertson.

Finally, Barabanov isn’t in the list, because well, I’ve been sitting on these rankings for a couple of weeks and we’re just getting around to the articles now. Barabanov likely would have fared pretty well with our writers and I’d safely put him in the top three.

Hopefully the mix of prospects and potential callups format works for you, if not, you’ll still get your summer prospect countdown this summer or after the draft, which even comes first. Tomorrow will have three honourable mentions who didn’t crack our top twenty, and we’ll crown our Top Leaf outside the NHL before the end of April.