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Mark Hunter joined Leafs Lunch Monday afternoon:

On Mitch Marner:
“I really liked him. Of course, everybody knows I drafted him in London when I was in London. We really believe he’s got a lot of upswing still. He’s physically not developed. He’s still only 160, 165. We believe, once he gets physically stronger, up to 180, he will be an outstanding hockey player. Of course we liked his hockey sense and his skill. He’s a young man that is very driven to be a hockey player. I knew everything about him, so I felt very comfortable in drafting him with that pick.
…. He has that knack to get out of the way and uses his skills still to get scoring chances and make plays on a consistent basis.”

On improvements needed before the next level:
“We got to make sure he’s playing both ends of the ice because it’s important when he gets here to the Leafs that he can play 200 feet, which we know he can. Still get his points, of course. The last thing is getting physically stronger. It’s important that he does that, to get stronger, from upper body to lower body, just to get more strength. I think he’s a real good skater; I think he can be an outstanding skater when he gets more strength.”

Philosophy of the double trade down:
“We felt that we could add two more picks. The guy, Dermott, who we took, we felt might have a good chance to get him in the 34th hole. We were lucky we did and feel good about getting him in that hole. It worked out to get him, and then we got two picks where we could take somebody else who can hopefully come in and play for the Leafs at some time.”

“It’s always tough to pass on somebody else that you think could’ve went in that spot. We thought we had somebody we could get in that 34th hole and we felt very comfortable with him. There were other players that of course we liked that got drafted in front of us. It’s something where you sit there and think, “ugh, we maybe could’ve had him.” At the end of the day, we felt very comfortable with the Dermott boy and really believe he’s going to be a hockey player and go in and do the job for us.”

“As scouts, that’s how you judge yourself: Who went in between and did you make the right decision in doing that. That’s just the business, and if you’re not willing to do that I don’t think you get better as a scout. I think it’s important we do that as a group and judge ourselves and see if we did make a mistake or if we did the right thing.”

On lack of major trade activity:
“It seemed like a lot of teams to me were really focused on the draft. It was a lot of draft picks getting switched back and forth. It wasn’t as much talk about players. I was actually surprised about that. Maybe it will pick up here on Wednesday. There wasn’t as much chatter as we all expected. No deal close to being done.”

“The scene was really quiet. Maybe it will open up here now on Wednesday where there will be more stuff happening because there’s not a lot of free agents out there.”

“We are trying to discuss right now on players. The process of looking at Mike Babcock as a coach; we look at it as he can get these players better. We feel good about Mike getting these guys to play up to their ability. I believe he can do that type of job and make this team better and make them more accountable. If you go around the league, all the managers in the league would agree with us.”


Semi related to that last quote….


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