Toronto Maple Leafs: Breaking Down Debuts and Projecting Next Season
After some impressive debuts against the Tampa Bay Lightning, we analyze the youngsters and consider what the Toronto Maple Leafs lineup could look like next season.
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Monday night was the highly anticipated debut of not one, but four top prospects for the Toronto Maple Leafs, and they didn’t disappoint. It turns out that these kids are alright.
While watching the game, there were two common themes with all the Marlies call-ups. First, they were all extremely well structured for their age, and second, my goodness, are they fast.
It is very apparent Sheldon Keefe is properly teaching and implementing Mike Babcock’s system with the Marlies, because all night, every call up was hounding the puck carriers and were very fast. The change in game speed was very noticeable between last Saturday night and Monday for sure.
I was extremely impressed with all of them; none of them looked out of place at all. Yet, if I had to highlight one prospect, it would be Kasperi Kapanen.
Kapanen was by far the most noticeable of the five call-ups, from an overall view as well as from a close up look at his game. From his incredible skill drive to the net where he deked out two Lightning defenders, to the scoring chances he had throughout the night.
Overall, I was impressed with certain aspects of each player’s game. Here are some notes I made on them.
Next: Kasperi Kapanen