Leafs Prospect Update: November 11

by Blue Chip Prospects on November 11, 2012 in Prospect Updates - 52 Comments

For most of the Leafs CHL prospects, this was a pretty lacklustre week.

Tyler Biggs picked up a pair of assists in Friday’s game but was held pointless in a pair of losses on Saturday and Sunday.  David Broll had a 3-point weekend with 2 goals and 1 assist.  Rielly plays an afternoon game tomorrow and after 1 assist in his last 3 games, he’ll have to put up some crooked numbers for his weekly production to be in any way noteworthy — though his play was, as always, solid.

While the group-wide production was uninspiring, there’s still plenty to talk about.  First of all, after being benched following what I’ve been told was a sub-par effort, both Joe Colborne and Nazem Kadri bounced back in a big way on Saturday night, putting up 5-points between them and from what I’ve heard, looking very good while doing it.  The highlights were nice, especially the nifty tic-tac-toe number that Colborne, Gardiner, and Kadri put together at the 1:19 mark of that video.   With my CHL commitments, I’ve only seen about half of the Marlies games so far this year but Kadri and Colborne have looked good when I’ve tuned in — I’m just lucky, I guess.

The story of the week as far as Leafs prospects goes was without a doubt Connor Brown.  I confessed last week to having not paid too much attention to him in the early stages of this season but I saw him this week and he looked good.  In 2 games, Brown put up 2 goals and 5 assist and all of his assists were of the primary variety.

The question that I’ve been asked most often this season is whether Brown is actually this good or whether he’s a product of another Connor; namely, Connor McDavid.  First of all, it’s impossible to take team or line effects out of Junior Hockey.  Who’s responsible for whose production?  It’s possibly the most maddening question to try and sort out.  Does it help Brown that he’s skating with the OHL’s super rookie? Of course.  But as good as McDavid will undoubtedly be, he’s still only the 15th leading scorer in the OHL as of tonight and that puts him 3 slots behind Brown, for now.

What I’ve seen from Brown in a small 3 game sampling is some good vision and creativity as well as a strong understanding of when it’s appropriate to shoot and when it’s better to pass.  His skating doesn’t really standout and he’s a bit undersized but he has a knack for finding and hitting the holes in the offensive zone coverage.

At the end of the day, despite his early production, I see Brown as a bit of a longshot.  He plays smart and he’s capable of making some high-skill plays but at his size and without exceptional speed, it’s going to be tough sledding for him to make The Show.  While he was full-marks for his points over the weekend (I’ll tweet the highlight pack or plays of the week once it comes out — one of his assists against Oshawa was magnificent), 11 of his 16 goals have come on the powerplay and things like that tend to even themselves out over the course of a season.

For now, I’m happy to see that he’s producing in his draft+1 year but my expectations are still tempered by his size and draft slot.  Not a lot of 6th rounders make it but for the time being, I’m just enjoying the ride.

Maple Leafs Prospect Regular Season Stats

Name	Age	League/Team	Position	GP	Goals	Assists	Points
		AMERICAN HOCKEY LEAGUE
Joe Colborne	22	AHL - Marlies	Forward	65	14	28	42
Carter Ashton	21	AHL - Marlies	Forward	53	11	8	19
Jerry D'Amigo	21	AHL - Marlies	Forward	65	16	11	27
Greg McKegg	20	AHL - Marlies	Forward	55	7	14	21
Kenny Ryan	21	AHL - Marlies	Forward	53	9	11	20
Brad Ross	20	AHL - Marlies	Forward	34	7	2	9
David Broll	20	AHL - Marlies	Forward	1	0	0	0
Spencer Abbott	24	AHL - Marlies	Forward	51	11	19	30
Jesse Blacker	21	AHL - Marlies	Defenceman	57	4	7	11
Jake Gardiner(X)	22	AHL - Marlies	Defenceman	43	10	21	31
Simon Gysbers	25	AHL - Marlies	Defenceman	52	4	12	16
Morgan Rielly	19	AHL - Marlies	Defenceman	9	1	1	2
Stuart Percy	19	AHL - Marlies	Defenceman	1	1	0	1
Andrew MacWilliam	23	AHL - Marlies	Defenceman	-	-	-	-
Andrew Crescenzi	20	AHL - Marlies ECHL - San Francisco	Forward	15 23	1 3	1 11	2 14
Jamie Devane	21	AHL - Marlies ECHL - San Francisco	Forward	18 12	2 1	3 0	5 1
Tyler Brenner	24	ECHL - Bakersfield ECHL - Toledo	Forward	32 21	8 2	13 4	21 6
Sam Carrick	20	AHL - Marlies ECHL - Idaho	Forward	14 49	2 15	2 21	4 36
Tyler Biggs	19	AHL - Marlies	Forward	-	-	-	-
		CANADIAN HOCKEY LEAGUE
Josh Leivo	19	OHL - Sudbury/Kitchener	Forward	63	29	44	73
Tyler Biggs	19	OHL - Oshawa	Forward	60	26	27	53
Connor Brown	18	OHL - Erie	Forward	63	28	41	69
Ryan Rupert	18	OHL - London	Forward	54	11	35	46
David Broll	19	OHL - Sault Ste. Marie	Forward	67	17	37	54
Stuart Percy	19	OHL - Mississauga	Defenceman	68	13	32	45
Matt Finn	18	OHL - Guelph	Defenceman	41	11	20	31
Morgan Rielly	18	WHL - Moose Jaw	Defenceman	60	12	42	54
		AMERICAN COLLEGE/JR HOCKEY
Tony Cameranesi	19	WCHA - Minnesota Duluth	Forward	38	14	20	34
Dominic Toninato	18	USHL - Fargo	Forward	62	29	41	70
Eric Knodel	22	NCAA - New Hampshire	Defenceman	38	10	11	21
Dennis Robertson	21	ECAC - Brown	Defenceman	36	3	17	20
Max Everson	19	ECAC - Harvard USHL - Omaha	Defenceman	7 16	0 1	2 4	2 5
Andrew MacWilliam	23	NCAA - North Dakota	Defenceman	41	2	11	13
		SWEDISH ICE HOCKEY
Petter Granberg	20	SEL - Skellefteå	Defenceman	13	0	0	0
Tom Nilsson	19	Allsvenskan - Mora	Defenceman	42	1	3	4
Viktor Loov	19	Allsvenskan - Södertälje	Defenceman	40	2	6	8

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