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In only 18 days, Toronto Maple Leafs prospects will assemble at Ricoh Coliseum for the annual rookie tournament against youngsters from the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators.
For now, the news about the club (with the exception of the signing of RFA Connor Brown or a professional tryout contract being offered to a veteran defenseman) will be trivial at best.
On Monday, NHL Network put out a list of the Top 20 centers in the league and Calder Trophy winner Auston Matthews was ranked fourth behind only Hart Trophy winner Connor McDavid and three-time Stanley Cup Champions Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
The 19-year-old scored 40 goals and 29 assists and was an integral part of getting the Maple Leafs into the playoffs for the first time in an 82-game regular season since 2004.
Although there is no doubt that Matthews took a remarkable first step towards being one of the best centers in the NHL, the criteria that determined him to be ranked ahead of Cup winners like Ryan Getzlaf, Patrice Bergeron and Jonathan Toews after one season is a bit questionable.
McDavid is no doubt a generational talent, but there is no way that the 20-year-old phenom should be ranked ahead of Crosby, who led the Penguins to consecutive Stanley Cup victories.
Maple Leafs youngsters like Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander will have to guard against believing press clippings, lists and online polls telling them how good they are and prove that they have what it takes to ascend to a higher echelon by following up their rookie campaigns with a successful sophomore season.
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As soon as the Leafs signed veteran Patrick Marleau, winger Connor Brown must have known that he was destined to wear a different number for a third straight season.
When the Toronto native was called up to the Leafs after the 2016 trade deadline, he wore 16 for a seven-game NHL stint. That number was given to Mitch Marner at the beginning of last season and 29 (the number he wore for two seasons with the Toronto Marlies) was assigned to William Nylander, which forced Brown to switch to 12.
According to
Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun, Marleau (who has worn 12 since the 2001-02 season with San Jose) will be given his old number and Brown will be forced to switch once again.
Brown is wearing 28 on his helmet at summer workouts at the MasterCard Centre in Etobicoke, the same number he wore when he won an OHL scoring title with the Erie Otters in 2014. If Brown does switch to his junior hockey number, it will mean that rookie Kasperi Kapanen will have to find a new number if he makes the Leafs out of training camp.
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