We’re a few weeks into the season now and while the Leafs are already seeing a breakout performance from Matthew Knies this year despite the counting stats not doing him justice, there are some Leafs prospects in the AHL and juniors that have caught my eye, for good and for bad.
The rising star
Artur Aktyamov
I was always a fan of Artur Aktyamov, I always felt that he had the highest ceiling out of all of Toronto’s goalie prospects. Dennis Hildeby was a more projectible talent given his body of work in the SHL plus his size, but “AA” has been a consistently good goaltender for a strong defensive program in Ak Bars Kazan.
Aktyamov plays a very aggressive style as a goalie, who pushes out of his net a ton to challenge shooters and cut out angles while still being strong positionally. He’s not the behemoth that Hildeby is, but he moves well and is tight and square to the puck.
He’s off to a great start with the Marlies as their 1A in net right now with Hildeby enjoying a stint with the Leafs due to Joseph Woll’s groin tightness, putting up a sparkling 3–0–0 record, 1.00 GAA and 0.964 SV%.
While Kyle Dubas has received his fair share of criticism during his tenure as general manager of the Leafs, he’s done a good job of re-stocking a pipeline that at one point had Garrett Sparks as its sole option and required a myriad of trades for journeymen vets to plug holes in the depth chart.
Heating up
Noah Chadwick
Noah Chadwick looks like he’s back on track. After logging just two points in his first five games in a year where there were some murmurs of him getting an invite to the WJC camp for Canada, Chadwick and the Lethbridge Hurricanes lit up the Prince George Cougars en route to a 3-point night.
Chadwick looked really comfortable in his game against Prince George, activating in transition, confidently and assertively moving the puck around. I think his skating continues to be the primary trait holding him back, but even compared to his performance at the Rookie Showcase a month ago, I thought he looked far more confident in his edgework and skating on Friday.
It’ll be intriguing to see if Chadwick can continue to build on his breakout D+1 season last year with Lethbridge, he’s the type of prospect that I think a Treliving front office can appreciate even though he is a Dubas holdover.
At his size, with those instincts offensively and his stickwork defensively, I think he can avoid the obstacles that some of the other blueline prospects in Toronto are facing now under a new front office.
Nikita Grebenkin
Grebenkin had a slow start to the AHL season which wasn’t wholly unexpected. While he showed some really positive signs during the Rookie Showdown that had a lot of people excited for his chances at making the big team out of camp, a stint with the Marlies was always going to be best for his development.
Grebenkin’s game has translated pretty well to North American ice, even if the production up until the last game didn’t show it. His ability to win back pucks and protect the puck along the boards while also having the skating and offensive ability to drive play is going to be a welcome addition to the Leafs someday. In the meantime, his willingness to crash the net and do all the little things right is encouraging to see.
I think with the sheer volume of depth Toronto has up front this season, it’s unlikely Grebenkin gets an NHL call-up this year unless he really forces the Leafs’ hand and a litany of injuries hit the roster. However, more showings like the one against Utica and he’ll be a favourite to lock in a bottom six roster spot heading into camp next year.
Thommie Bergman strikes again
Victor Johansson
I’ll be the first to admit I had zero tape or insight on Victor Johansson when he was drafted. The skinny defenseman, who didn’t really stand out at all during Leafs Development Camp, started the season with Leksands IF J20 red-hot with 13 points in 14 games.
I haven’t been able to watch a ton of Johansson to this point, but the sudden uptick in production alongside his promotion to the SHL squad (albeit in a third-pair role) suggests at the very least that Leksands’ management is liking what they’re seeing from the young Leafs draft pick.
Melvin Novotny is someone who’s on my shortlist to watch this year and I was hoping to get an opportunity to catch some of Johansson’s tape while scouting the draft-eligible forward. If Novotny keeps up his start to the season with Leksands and gets a promotion as well, there might be a lot more Victor Johansson discussion in the future.
Misleadingly good
Alexander Plesovskikh
Plesovskikhh is off to a hot start in the MHL this year but I’m not entirely sure he’s playing at that level. There’s certainly a more assertive nature to Plesovskikh this year on the puck where he’s much more willing to try things like banking the puck into open space to himself, and he works very hard to get to the middle of the ice when he attacks.
Despite those subtle improvements, I can’t help but feel that the somewhat clunky, unrefined player is still there. I like his heavy shot and he can get it off quickly too which has allowed him to tally some opportunistic goals in the first three or so games of the year, but a lot of his jump in production feels like his increased role on the powerplay and with his deployment.
MHK Spartak Moskva appears to be much more willing to let him take a lead role this year than Yugry was last season, and they’ve continued to bump him up the line-up and on the powerplay.
I like the player a bit more now that he’s proven that he can put up numbers in the MHL, but he really feels like a Mikhail Vorobyov type of player. Good MHL/KHL player but doesn’t quite have enough developed skills to make it in North America.
Fallen out of favour
William Villeneuve
There’s not a ton to say about Villeneuve. I was never the biggest fan of him, as his warts with decision-making under pressure and lack of great skating didn’t really improve in his second full season with the Marlies last year. However, it appears that he’s also fallen out of favour with the new front office.
The Marlies have a lot of new bodies this year with guys like Cade Webber and Nicolas Mattinen joining stalwarts from last season like Kokkonen and Rifai, and as a result Villeneuve (and to a lesser extent, Topi Niemela) almost feel like afterthoughts.
Villeneuve has played in three of the Marlies’ five games this year which is only higher than Matteo Pietroniro in terms of holdovers from last season. It feels like time is running out for the Saint John Sea Dogs alumnus to make it with the Leafs.
Struggling
Nicholas Moldenhauer
Moldenhauer was on my list of three prospects to watch out for this year, and six games in he is not looking like a good pick. While Roni Hirvonen has five points in five games in a top-six role for the Marlies and Miroslav Holinka has five points in six games for the Edmonton Oil Kings also in a top-six role, Moldenhauer has a measly two points in six games and has been demoted to the fourth line.
After starting the season on Michigan’s first line, Moldenhauer has fallen down the lineup in favour of Jackson Hallum and Phillippe Lapointe. There’s hope on my end that he can turn it around and that the demotion is just a way for Coach Naurato to give him a jump start.
Unfortunately, with Michale Hage’s incredible start to the season and Moldenhauer’s exclusion from the top powerplay unit from the get-go at the start of the year, the stars don’t seem to be aligned for the former Chicago Steel to have a breakout season as I’d hoped.
Conclusion
While there are a lot of other prospects getting off to solid starts to their season (Miroslav Holinka, Easton Cowan, Roni Hirovonen, Sam McCue), these are the guys that I’ve highlighted for the first check-in of the year. I’m hoping to provide monthly or bi-monthly updates throughout the year on Leafs prospects, so keep an eye out for those as well as OHL prospect rankings for the 2025 NHL Draft!
