For much of Kyle Dubas’ tenure in Toronto, the ongoing theme amongst the fanbase was the fact that the team didn’t seem to have a ready supply of cheap young talent that was able to come up and support the top-end talent.
While Dubas did an admirable job trying to find gems like Michael Bunting to counteract that fact, the reality is that the foundation of the organization just wasn’t strong enough. It led to Toronto spending valuable cap resources going after depth players like Calle Jarnkrok and David Kampf in free agency and guys like Noesen and Hutton at the trade deadline.
A lot of this can be attributed to a strikingly low hit percentage for Toronto in the mid-2010’s drafts. In today’s article we’ll be focusing primarily on the 2016 NHL Draft.
Before we get into this, it’s well-acknowledged drafting is hard. You’re wrong more often than you’re right. If there was a foolproof way to be right every time, then every front office would do it.
Circumstance, individual drive, injuries, and so many other factors are out of NHL teams’ hands. I had Tomas Galvas in my first-round last year and he didn’t even get drafted. It’s an unforgiving, inexact science.
Leafs fans will look fondly back to the 2016 NHL Draft. It’s impossible not to. After years of being in the league’s doldrums outside of the wild season that was the 2013 lockout, Toronto had their pick of the litter at 1st overall.
However, Toronto also had a stockpile of five picks in the first three rounds. This had the potential makings of an elite draft class.
Round One – 1st Overall
Despite some media drumming trying to suggest otherwise, there was only one option from day one. Auston Matthews. Franchise Centre. Elite goal scorer. By all accounts, Matthews has been as advertised.
Despite dealing with an assortment of nagging injuries throughout his career, there’s no denying the American’s ability when he’s healthy and on the ice. With 385 goals and 683 points in just 593 games, Matthews has cemented himself as one of the greats of Leafs history.
It may have been the obvious pick, and most of the work was done by the lottery gods themselves, but outside of a slight challenge from Matthew Tkachuk, there’s no other player in this class that comes close to #34.
Grade: A+
Round 2 – 31st Overall
This one stings. At first glance, you can see why NHL teams could value Egor Korshkov. At 6’3”, 179 lbs with good hands and skating, the tools were all there for him to be a potential NHL player.
In his draft year, he put up 12 points in 41 games for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl in the KHL which was a marked improvement from his 24-game stint the year prior.
Unfortunately, he was also much further along in his development path than the rest of the draft class. After being passed in both of his prior two draft-eligible seasons, despite the size and toolkit, there just wasn’t much more runway for him to develop.
Korshkov would spend the next three seasons with Lokomotiv, never really breaking out in that league. He was right around half a point a game during that time, only a slight improvement from his 2015–16 numbers.
Korshkov would spend just one season in North America including one NHL game before returning to Lokomotiv on loan.
Given eight of the next thirteen players drafted played over 100 NHL games including names like Jordan Kyrou, Alex DeBrincat, and Nathan Bastian I think it’s easy to say that this one was a miss.
Grade: F
Round 2 – 57th Overall
I like Carl Grundstrom, while he never played NHL Games for Toronto (traded to the LAK in the Jake Muzzin deal before he had a chance) the 6’0” hard-nosed player has carved himself a nice career in the NHL.
With 267 games under his belt, the Leafs 2nd round pick hasn’t lit up the scoreboard with just 72 points, but he was a bottom six staple for a good number of years with LA. He didn’t have the high-end traits to be a big producer, but his shot volume and physicality has allowed him to stay in the NHL.
Given only Taylor Raddysh and Adam Fox ended up playing more games than him within the next 15 picks, and the fact that Toronto got multiple good years from Jake Muzzin by trading him, I think that this was a solid pick overall.
Grade: B
Round 3 – 62nd Overall
The only other draft pick still on the roster, Joseph Woll was a steal at this pick. While some may look longingly at Adam Fox who was drafted just four picks later, Woll has been stellar as a Leaf. With Ian Scott’s injuries and Garrett Sparks imploding the moment he touched the NHL, Woll has become the first self-developed NHL goalie from Toronto since James Reimer.
While Woll’s games played metrics are low (only 59 games so far in his NHL career), he’s put up a .910 SV% and 2.72 GAA in those games. When Woll is healthy (which has so far been the biggest roadblock to him earning a full-time starting role), he is legitimately one of the best 25(?) goalies in the entire league.
You can’t overlook the injuries, but to get a potential NHL starter at age 26 in the third round is some sneaky good value.
Grade: B+
Round 3 – 72nd Overall
In all fairness, at this point in the draft, the results end up becoming a bit of a mixed bag. From Picks 67–91, only five players ended up playing more than 82 games in the NHL, so Toronto’s selection of J.D. Greenway isn’t terrible in that respect.
However, he’s part of a pick in the same philosophy as Egor Korshkov. Another big player (6’4”), Greenway’s ceiling was always quite limited.
Poor decision-making under pressure and a lack of true offensive instincts meant that while he was a good skater, and super physical, he needed a lot of development to become an NHL-calibre player.
All in all, Greenway never went pro with Toronto, a season with Dubuque in the USHL splitting his four-year collegiate career with Wisconsin and Maine. He went on to play 37 games in the AHL with the Boston Bruins affiliate but that’s as close as he ever got to making it to the show.
While this point in the draft is always a dart throw, the fact Toronto took someone who never showed any NHL viability has to knock their score down.
Grade: D
Success?
All in all, with the benefit of hindsight, Toronto did pretty poorly in the first three rounds of the 2016 NHL Draft after the Matthews pick.
Joseph Woll has the potential to save this draft class with some stellar play down the stretch, and Grundstrom did play a part in Jake Muzzin’s 187 games in Toronto.
However, Korshkov and Greenway were almost punts at their picks; a double overager with average KHL numbers and a tall, physical defenseman who could never relay that at the pro level.
