The Toronto Maple Leafs are officially through their first draft both without Brendan Shanahan and with new Director of Amateur Scouting Mark Leach. They came into the draft with six picks and used each of them, bringing in five forwards and one defenceman. With nobody standing smaller than 6-foot-1 and most players in there known for their toughness in some capacity, the Maple Leafs clearly had a type of player they were after and looked to fulfill it as much as they could.

Draft weekend is a great time if you work for EliteProspects or HockeyDB. Any hockey fan who cares about the draft at all scrambles to check either of these websites to see who their new prospect is, what position they play, how tall they are, and where they’ll be playing next season. It’s a given that none of the Leafs’ picks from this year’s draft will be in the NHL next season, so I’ll save you some time and give you a rundown of where each of these players will spend the 2025-26 season.

The Maple Leafs shocked some draft experts, including our very own Steven Ellis, when they took Koblar with their first pick of the draft. Not that he’s not a good player, he’s lots of tools that will be valuable in an NHLer should he get there, but he’s a certain project pick and was further down most people’s draft boards than where he was selected. But, hey, we said the same thing about Easton Cowan, and now he’s a Memorial Cup MVP.

Koblar is a 6-foot-4 centre who played for Leksands IF’s junior team in Sweden, and at this point, he’s poised to return for another season. He didn’t blow anybody away with his number offensively, with eight goals and 21 points in 43 games, but the Maple Leafs believe there’s enough to his size and defensive game that will make the wait for his offence a little easier to stomach. After all, he models his game after Anze Kopitar. There’s potential here, but it will be a while before we see him playing in Toronto outside of development camp.

The immediate skepticism from the Hopkins pick disintegrated quickly when the Maple Leafs landed Hopkins in the third round. He was projected to go in either the second round or the early third round, so to get him in the back half of the latter was a solid piece of business.

The 6-foot-1 centre posted 20 goals and 51 points in 67 games for the OHL’s Kingston Frontenacs in 2024-25, and he’ll be headed back there in 2025-26. He’s got two more years of junior eligibility, but assuming he takes any sort of step forward in those two years, he’ll be with the Toronto Marlies as soon as he turns 20. He plays with an edge and has an extremely well-rounded game for this stage of his career, similar traits to those of former prospect Fraser Minten, whom the Leafs traded at the deadline this season. If he can fill that void, it will be a successful pick for the Leafs.

William Belle’s trajectory en route to hearing his name called by the Maple Leafs at the draft is, in his own words, a curveball. He was born in China and didn’t move to North America until 2015, but quickly developed a love for the game upon arrival. He played AAA at Shattuck St. Mary’s Prep and just completed his second season with the U.S. National Team Development program. He will be going to school and playing for the University of Notre Dame in 2025-26.

His offensive totals over the two years with the development program won’t wow you, but at 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds, he’s a punishing power forward who models his game after Washington Capitals forward Tom Wilson. That alone should make fans excited about the potential in this player, and there’s clearly enough intrigue in his game for a school to welcome him to their team despite the low offence.

In a span of 16 picks, the Maple Leafs added two power forwards – one who wants to hurt his opponents and one with a specialty for dishing the puck. Nansi, who stands at 6-foot-3 and 185 pounds, represents the latter and just completed his second season with the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack. He finished this season with 23 points in 67 games and will head back for his third season in 2025-26 in hopes of taking a step forward offensively.

The playmaking is an intriguing part of his game, but ultimately, the Maple Leafs saw something they liked in his intangibles, and if you already possess those, it makes gambling on the other side of your game a little easier to do. He’ll have, if he wants, three more possible seasons in the OHL before he turns pro.

The Maple Leafs’ first and only defenceman drafted in this class is, surprise! Big and strong. Fellinger, who is right-handed and hails from Wawa, Ontario, is a shutdown defenceman with good physicality complemented by his size at 6-foot-4 and 198 pounds.

The blueliner didn’t bring much to the table offensively in 2024-25, with seven points in 64 games, but his defensive instincts and tendency to play as if you don’t see him made him enough of a worthwhile gamble for the Maple Leafs to take, even if it’s a long development process. He’ll have a chance to hone out his game with the Flint Firebirds as he heads back to the OHL for his third season.

To close out the 2025 NHL Draft, the Maple Leafs went for another forward, who, if nothing else, should be fun to follow. The 6-foot-3 winger Kitchener Rangers forward is a year older than most players in this draft class, having turned 19 back in May, so that fact combined with only having eight points in 43 games may not seem appealing at first, but seven of those points were goals, and they came in the way that satisfies blue-collar fans everywhere – greasy bang-ins in front of the net.

Pair this with his tendency to drop the gloves and throw punishing hits, and you can see why he was on teams’ draft boards. He will head back to the Rangers for another season, and if he takes enough of a step forward, he’ll be 20 by the time this time next year rolls around and the team could offer him an entry-level contract.