The Toronto Maple Leafs have begun the UDFA period by signing right-shot defenseman Vincent Borgesi to a two-year entry-level contract.
The Northeastern University product will join the Toronto Marlies to begin his professional hockey career.
The 22-year-old, who appears to go by “Vinny” on his Northeastern player page, is listed at 5’8/185, which is the first trait everyone will notice and may explain why he went undrafted. Borgesi hails from Philadelphia and was a four-year player, enrolling in college at 18 and becoming a mainstay of the Northeastern program. Over his four-season career, Borgesi has collected a bevy of team and conference awards en route to becoming one of the better undrafted free agents available. Borgesi will now inject youth and skating ability into the Leafs‘ minor-league system/blue line.
Borgesi’s path to pro hockey is more traditional than many North American undrafted free agents. After playing youth hockey in his hometown region, Borgesi joined the USHL at age 16, as many future college players do. He played two seasons for the USHL’s Tri-City Storm, making him a teammate of Matthew Knies during his first season there (2020-21). Borgesi only recorded 12 points in his debut season in the USHL, but he became much more productive in his second season, scoring 5-33-38 in 57 games. That stat line made Borgesi the second-highest-scoring defenseman on the Storm, behind the ultra-controversial figure Mitchell Miller.
After two seasons in the USHL, Borgesi joined Northeastern University’s team at age 18. For those unaware, this is a fairly unusual path for someone who ends up undrafted. Only a small percentage of college hockey players enter the NCAA at 18, and among those who do, almost all are drafted. Players who become NHL UDFAs usually were later bloomers, with Bobby McMann as one example: McMann didn’t enroll at Colgate until he was already 20. But Borgesi was never drafted, and it’s hard not to see his severely undersized frame for a defenseman as a major reason for it.
Northeastern was unbothered by the size concerns with Borgesi. The Huskies are not generally the strongest of teams (they did not make the NCAA Tournament once in Borgesi’s four seasons), but they do play in the Hockey East, one of the NCAA’s three power conferences; meaning, Borgesi faced titans like Boston College and Boston University and their stars such as Macklin Celebrini, Lane Hutson, Ryan Leonard, and Will Smith. Across 134 collegiate games, Borgesi’s teeth have been sharpened by solid competition.
In Borgesi’s first season with Northeastern, he was a regular in the lineup without notable production. The leap came in his second season, all the way up to 28 points in 34 games, the highest scoring defenseman on the team. Perhaps a sign of how well-regarded Borgesi was by his teammates, he was selected as an assistant captain as a sophomore. After the season, Borgesi was named the team’s defensive MVP and received the team’s Most Improved Player award. For his efforts, Borgesi appeared in the 2024 Elite Prospects Draft Guide, but he was not selected in that June’s NHL Draft (his last year of eligibility).
The past two seasons have been a continuation of Borgesi’s sophomore season success. His point totals have ticked down a bit, but he’s remained the highest-scoring defender on the team, and he plays a ton. In 2024-25, the first season that time-on-ice numbers were publicly available in college hockey, Borgesi logged 28:04 on average, the most in the country for any skater by a full half-second. This past season, Borgesi played a little less, averaging 27:11, but it was still the most among NCAA players. Power play, penalty kill, 5v5 — you name it, Borgesi did it all. He was named Northeastern’s defensive MVP again in 2024-25 (I assume he’ll complete the three-peat whenever the team hands out this season’s awards) and received recognition from Hockey East as well.
Logging as much time as Borgesi did in a conference like the Hockey East will put a player on the radar, and he appeared on many lists of the top UDFA targets for this spring cycle. Borgesi’s skating ability leaps out from his scouting reports, an essential strength for a small defenseman. I spoke to one scout whose first words were “terrific skater.” Likewise, the Elite Prospects UDFA Guide states: “an explosive skater, Borgesi easily separates from opponents and closes gaps. Despite his heavy usage, he activates into every possible sequence, often leading rushes and setting up chances.”
It’s extra impressive that Borgesi can play so many minutes, given how active he is in joining the rush, with the aforementioned scout telling me that Borgesi “seems to have the best cardio as anyone in the last 10 years, as he plays a ton and never looks winded.” Recent scouts don’t appear to be as enamored with Borgesi’s offensive tools, with his hands getting some praise but not much else. The 2024 Elite Prospects Draft Guide was a little more positive, praising Borgesi’s “use of space paired with a series of deceptive manoeuvres like look-offs or fakes cuts through opponents and opens up passing lanes.”
However, the production of the last few seasons probably suggests we shouldn’t expect his skating alone to translate into the elite offensive production at the pro level. But where puck rushers are often accompanied by the question “can he play defense?”, the scouting seems uniformly positive about Borgesi’s defensive game. The UDFA Guide describes Borgesi as a “robust defender,” and the scout I spoke to wrote, “he defends well, relying on quickness to take away time and space, and he also uses good body position and an active stick.” He was trusted in all situations by Northeastern, so I would expect Borgesi’s mobility and smarts to make him at least a passable AHL defender.
Of course, there will always be the drawback of Borgesi’s size; there’s no way around it. But while size is certainly important for defensemen, obsessing over it can sometimes lead to overlooking decent players. Current Maple Leaf Troy Stecher was an undrafted player at 5’10, but he starred at the University of North Dakota and has since put together an NHL career spanning over 600 games. Sam Malinski is bigger at 5’11 (though he is slight), but he was undrafted, played at Cornell, and has since blossomed into a trusty defender for the Colorado Avalanche, one who just received a $19 million extension.
Those players are bigger than Borgesi by a few inches, but we have an even better comparison, the one my mind went to immediately after looking at Borgesi’s stats pages: Nick Blankenburg. Blankenburg is listed at an extremely generous 5’9 and is even slighter than Borgesi at 177 lbs., yet he has managed to carve out a role in the NHL as a useful third-pair/seventh D, one successful enough that a contender like the Avalanche traded for him at the recent NHL trade deadline.
Having covered Blankenburg at the University of Michigan, I was skeptical that he would make it in the NHL as a defenseman when he departed the NCAA. Instead, Blankenburg managed to combine his smarts, skating, and work ethic to carve out an NHL career. Blankenburg’s collegiate narrative has some similarities in offensive production, and Borgesi hangs his hat on his skating, as Blankenburg does. It may not be the sexiest sounding projection — if it goes well, he could be Nick Blankenburg! — but with UDFA prospects, making the NHL at all is a big success. If the Leafs can get a useful third-pair or 7th D out of Borgesi, it will be a great development story.
If nothing else, this signing is an interesting development given the Leafs‘ usual M.O. under Brad Treliving. Over the past couple of seasons, the franchise has filled out its organizational defensive depth by acquiring UDFAs or minor league players like John Prokop (6’3), Henry Thrun (6’2), Philippe Myers (6’5), and Cade Webber (6’6). Signing Borgesi is a noticeable shift. Perhaps it represents a change in Treliving’s thinking after a disastrous season where the franchise’s lack of mobility and puck-moving ability on its blue line has been a noticeable drawback. Or it may be someone else steering the organization moving forward anyway. Either way, Borgesi should add some more intrigue to the Marlies for the rest of the season and represent a plausible future prospect to help the team’s right-side blue-line depth.
